“We’re very proud about the fact that our embassies promote Australian values internationally and I’m very concerned to see an overseas government seemingly take action against an Australian embassy that is upholding Australian values,” he said.
According to Amesty International, LGBTQIA+ people suffer “systemic discrimination and violence in Iran,” where the punishment for consensual same-sex relations ranges from flogging to the death penalty.
Iranian authorities have sentenced rights advocates to death over posts on social media.
In 2021 prominent Iranian LGBTQIA+ campaigners Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani and Elham Chobdar were arrested and later sentenced to death for alleged crimes including “corruption on earth” and “promoting homosexuality” over social media, according to the US government and Amnesty International.
Both advocates were released on bail in 2023, and Sedighi-Hamadani fled Iran for an “undisclosed country” the next year. Chobdar was re-arrested in 2024 and remains in detention, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
