An Iranian regime cleric told his followers that the COVID-19 vaccination turns people into “homosexuals”, which is punishable by death in Iran.
Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the outrageous claims on Tuesday on the social media platform Telegram, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“Don’t get close to those who got the COVID vaccine,” wrote the radical Islamist to his nearly 210,000 followers. “They became homosexual.”
Tabrizian, who lives in the religious capital of Qom and whose followers refer to him as Ayatollah, has a history of promoting prejudice and false information about Western medicine.
Last year, the totalitarian burned the “Harrison Medical Manual” in a video recorded ceremony, claiming that “Islamic medicine” had made these books “irrelevant”, according to Radio Farda, a broadcasting service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
“Like other clerics in the regime, Tabrizian also reports all the faults [shortcomings] to sexuality, ”Iranian dissident Sheina Vojoudi told the Jerusalem Post.
“Iranian clergy are suffering from a lack of knowledge and humanity. In fact, your goal of spreading nonsense is to try to scare people [out] to be vaccinated, while the regime leader and other officials have Pfizer, and they don’t provide that to people with the excuse that they don’t trust the West. ”
A prominent defender of gay rights told the Israeli newspaper that the intimidation tactics of many Iranian religious and political leaders often combine ignorance and hatred.
“He is demonizing both the vaccination program and LGBT + people with no trace of evidence,” said Peter Tatchell.
“By trying to scare the public out of being vaccinated against COVID-19, it is fueling the pandemic and putting lives at risk,” added Tatchell.
Same-sex sexual activity is punishable by execution in Iran, and thousands of gays have been sentenced to death since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, according to the Israeli newspaper.
In 2019, an Iranian foreign minister defended these atrocities for Germany’s public broadcasting network.
“Our society has moral principles. And we live by these principles. These are moral principles regarding the behavior of people in general. And that means that the law is respected and the law is obeyed, ”Mohammed Javad Zarif told Deutsche Welle.
In 2018 and 2019, Iran executed at least nine children, while the U.S. increased sanctions after accusing the country of violating a 2015 nuclear deal.