Iranian President AHMADINEJAD:
"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."
I'd love to know the question that was asked of him because, to me, it's not clear on its face from this quote that he was saying that Iran doesn't have homosexuals. He said that they don't have homosexuals like in the US. That's open to a little bit of interpretation.
Try these:
In Iran, we don't have music, like in your country.
In Iran, we don't have entrepreneurs, like in your country.
In Iran, we don't have air travel, like in your country.
How would you interpret these statements? That they don't have music, entrepreneurs or air travel?
Or was he saying that the "phenomenon" of our homosexual community was different than theirs? Or in my examples, that their music is different, their entrepreneurs aren't as aggressive and that air travel is rare there?
There's also an interpreter involved, too, don't forget.
I don't see how the man could have said they don't have homosexuals there, period, given the fact that a schmoe like me knows their word for it here in Chicago. I do see how he could be saying that the "phenomenon" is treated differently there.
Of course, you won't get a thought like this from the mainstream media. They just want the sensational headline and want to run with it before anybody thinks it through...
Shivas,
Come on. He avoided the original question and was brought back to the question. The audience in the clip I saw was laughing at the statement and he kind of smirked for a second. I have some Persian friends here but he said what he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401042.html Here is the transcript:
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QUESTION: Mr. President, another student asks -- Iranian women are now denied basic human rights and your government has imposed draconian punishments, including execution on Iranian citizens who are homosexuals. Why are you doing those things?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Freedoms in Iran are genuine, true freedoms. Iranian people are free. Women in Iran enjoy the highest levels of freedom.
We have two deputy -- two vice presidents that are female, at the highest levels of specialty, specialized fields. In our parliament and our government and our universities, they're present. In our biotechnological fields, our technological fields, there are hundreds of women scientists that are active -- in the political realm as well.
It's not -- it's wrong for some governments, when they disagree with another government, to, sort of, try to spread lies that distort the full truth.
Our nation is free. It has the highest level of participation in elections, in Iran. Eighty percent, ninety percent of the people turn out for votes during the elections, half of which, over half of which are women. So how can we say that women are not free? Is that the entire truth?
But as for the executions, I'd like to raise two questions. If someone comes and establishes a network for illicit drug trafficking that affects the youth in Iran, Turkey, Europe, the United States, by introducing these illicit drugs and destroys them, would you ever reward them?
People who lead the lives -- cause the deterioration of the lives of hundreds of millions of youth around the world, including in Iran, can we have any sympathy to them? Don't you have capital punishment in the United States? You do, too.
(APPLAUSE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, too, there's capital punishment for illicit drug traffickers, for people who violated the rights of people. If somebody takes up a gun, goes into a house, kills a group of people there, and then tries to take ransom, how would you confront them in Iran -- or in the United States? Would you reward them? Can a physician allow microbes symbolically speaking to spread across a nation?
We have laws. People who violate the public rights of the people by using guns, killing people, creating insecurity, sells drugs, distribute drugs at a high level are sentenced to execution in Iran.
And some of these punishments, very few, are carried in the public eye, before the public eye. It's a law, based on democratic principles. You use injections and microbes to kill these people, and they, they're executed or they're hung. But the end result is killing.
QUESTION: Mr. President, the question isn't about criminal and drug smugglers. The question was about sexual preference and women.
(APPLAUSE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.
(LAUGHTER)
We don't have that in our country.
(AUDIENCE BOOING)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.
(LAUGHTER)
But, as for women, maybe you think that being a woman is a crime. It's not a crime to be a woman.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Women are the best creatures created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God instills in them. Women are respected in Iran. In Iran, every family who is given a girl -- is given -- in every Iranian family who has a girl, they are 10 times happier than having a son. Women are respected more than men are.
They are exempt from many responsibilities. Many of the legal responsibilities rest on the shoulders of men in our society because of the respect, culturally given, to women, to the future mothers. In Iranian culture, men and sons and girls constantly kiss the hands of their mothers as a sign of respect, respect for women. And we are proud of this culture.
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The comments were so absurd that it was erased from the Iranian release of the speech:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070926-1422-iran-ahmadinejad.htmlSorry for the off topic and one of my few political post on GCA, but I was waiting for him to say, "we don't have it..............not that there is anything wrong with it!"