The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Thursday demanded a stay of execution for Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani and Elham Choubdar. In August, the Islamic Revolution Court of Urumieh charged Sedighi-Hamadani and Choubdar with “corruption on earth” for allegedly promoting homosexuality and sentenced both women to death.

Sedighi-Hamadani was arrested and arbitrarily detained in October 2021 by the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) near Iran’s border with Turkey. Following her arrest, she was forcibly disappeared for 53 days, held in solitary confinement and denied her fair trial rights, including access to a lawyer.

Before attempting  to leave Iran, Sedighi-Hamadani recorded a video, saying:

I want you to know how much pressure we LGBT people endure. We risk our lives for our emotions, but we will find our true selves… I hope the day will come when we can all live in freedom in our country. I am journeying toward freedom now… If I don’t make it, I will have given my life for this cause.

UN officials say that both women have been “prosecuted on the discriminatory basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, including the criminalization of LGBT people whose human rights they were supporting through speech and peaceful action.” President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi has called homosexuality the “ugliest of behaviours” and a “wretched” act. Amnesty International agrees that convictions and sentences like Sedighi-Hamadani and Choubdar’s “are based on discriminatory reasons related to the women’s real or perceived sexual orientation and/or gender identity.”

According to Hengaw Human Rights Organization, LGBT activist Soheila Ashrafi is imprisoned in the women’s ward of Urmia Central Prison and is still waiting for a verdict in her case.