Iranian actor apologies after summoning by authorities following LGBT-supportive tweet

• Bahram Radan tweeted in support of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of nationwide same-sex marriage, leading to his summoning by Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance.
• The reaction to the U.S. ruling highlights the division in Iranian society and the diaspora over LGBT rights, seeing online debate stirred after many added Facebook’s rainbow filter to their profile pictures in solidarity with the decision and many others condemned the action.
• Iran’s hardline conservative authorities have relaxed some punishments against homosexual acts, but they are still criminalized and treated as manifestations of mental illness.

“They’re afraid that people in Iran are beginning to talk about homosexuality as a sexual minority, not an illness, and they don’t want that to be normalised.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua Press/Corbis, via The Guardian)