You post about one thing, like a report of a meeting in Bristol describing how a Respect branch is successfully rebuilding itself, and the discussion moves onto something else completely, such as just how horrid George Galloway is. Funny that.
I’ve watched three Youtube clips of George Galloway including the interview.
In the first one he let slip his secret religious side. He doesn’t like the idea of scientists or politicians playing god. He certainly kept quiet about being a Catholic. You don’t want any papists with their rosary beads and incense in left organisations and we can expect someone to demand that the Marxists in Respect earn their atheist spurs by raising the matter at the next National Council and getting a resolution on the conference agenda denouncing this backwardness. He mentioned too that he’s against the monarchy. He wants a republic. That might be controversial in some Labour Party circles. Newham Labour Party displayed a picture of Elizabeth Windsor in its bar and even with the amount of drink that used to be consumed there no one vandalised it.
The interview in which he referred to the execution of Makvan Mouloodzadeh and the deportation of Medhi Kazemi lasts just over one minute and he makes the following points. Feel free to comment on any nuances that slipped by me.
- In part the story was being used as ongoing propaganda against Iran, with the implication that this is part of the psychological preparation for an attack on Iran that he believes is being prepared.
- He said that the papers imply you get hung in Iran for being gay but that’s not true and Mouloodzadeh was hung for committing sex crimes against young men.
- He is against execution for any reason in any place.
- In his view Medhi should not be deported, not least because he will be accused of being the source of the anti-Iranian propaganda.
- He concluded by referring to the deportation, by a Labour government, of a woman being treated for cancer who died a short time after because she could not afford medical care in Ghana.
In the third interview he says that “all religions and many countries are against gay people. Oppression of gay people is true in Texas and Tehran because all religions and all societies discriminate against gay people.”
From these points the myth of Galloway the ayatollah homophobe is being spun but it does not stand any real scrutiny. The bit where he says he’s not homophobic and the hectoring of an anti-gay caller on his radio show prove that. If for example, Ruth Kelly, had said she’s against the deportation of asylum seekers, against capital punishment, against homophobia and imperialist war, in favour of a republic and that all religions are anti-gay Labour’s left would have a new heroine. Instead lots of people who are critical of, or hostile to, the construction of a class struggle left of Labour Party endless parse every public utterance from George Galloway to wilfully misrepresent his views.
The war on Iraq was prepared for with a drip of horror stories about the crimes of Saddam Hussein and his regime and we were invited to accept an imperialist war as a solution to this evil. Not much intellectual sophistication is required to oppose both homicidal dictators and homicidal Labour governments and you’d have to be fairly dim not to have realised that their was a connection between liberal imperialism’s sudden concern for the Iraqis it had blockaded for a decade and the upcoming invasion. Any planning for an attack on Iran is certain to have a section devoted to the media policy and that policy will include things that are true, like Makvan Mouloodzadeh’s execution and things that are false.
Iran, like many other parts of the world, might not be an easy place to be out and gay but there is nothing in its penal code to say it’s a hanging offence. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) writes “that despite an order by the Iranian Chief Justice to nullify his death sentence, Mr. Makvan Mouloodzadeh was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison”. Its description of the case :
Mr. Mouloodzadeh was a 21-year-old Iranian citizen who was accused of committing anal rape (ighab) with other young boys when he was 13 years old. However, at Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Makvan also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty. On June 7, 2007, the Seventh District Criminal Court of Kermanshah in Western Iran found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Despite his lawyer’s appeal, the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence on August 1, 2007. The case caused an international uproar, and prompted a letter writing campaign by IGLHRC and similar actions by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Outrage! and Everyone Group.
In response to mounting public pressure, and following a detailed petition submitted to the Iranian Chief Justice by Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s lawyer, the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, nullified the impending death sentence of Mr. Mouloodzadeh. In his November 10, 2007 opinion (1/86/8607), the Iranian Chief Justice described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land.
In accordance with Iranian legal procedure, Mr. Mouloodzadeh’s case was sent to the Special Supervision Bureau of the Iranian Justice Department, a designated group of judges who are responsible for reviewing and ordering retrials of flawed cases flagged by the Iranian Chief Justice. However, in defiance of the Chief Justice, the judges 
decided to ratify the original court’s ruling and ordered the local authorities to carry out the execution.
In a formal sense George Galloway was right in saying that the legal basis of the execution was rape. Maybe he should have added that it was a breach of Iranian legal procedure and that the Iranian Chief Justice described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings. Perhaps he should have done more background research into the details of the case. Did he support the execution? Could you construe that he wants to hang gay people? Not even his worst enemy could claim that, though some hint it with no great subtlety.
What is George Galloway’s view on the deportation of an asylum seeker by a Labour Home Secretary? The unprincipled rogue is opposed to it and then dares criticise Jacqui Smith for passing a slow death sentence on Ama Sumani who had malignant myeloma, a crime which pro-Labour writers don’t mention much and for which one of their members bears direct personal responsibility.
By way of shifting Socialist Resistance’s position on LGBT rights from under the bushel where it’s usually stored here is a passage from the upcoming issue of our new magazine and which has been on our Facebook site since day one.
Socialist Resistance stands in opposition to racism and Islamophobia and to the oppression of women, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people and disabled people. We believe that the most effective way to fight these forms of discrimination is through the coming together of those who directly experience them.
For those of you who want the closest we’ve come to expressing a collective view about the defeat of the Iranian revolution here is an article I wrote a while back.
Liam redux 
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