IRQO was founded the summer of 2006 with the aim of familiarizing the Iranian society with sexual diversity issues and working toward the decriminalization of homosexuality. Other goals include serving the Iranian queer community residing in Canada, and educating the larger Iranian-Canadian communities on issues of inclusion and diversity.

As the only organization of its kind, IRQO does not have the luxury of restricting its activities to pre-defined areas and methods of advocacy. IRQO’s aim is to reach out to as many communities inside Iran as possible, advocate the acceptance and inclusion of queer identities among them, and support the LGBT movements that have already started and advanced inside Iran for a decade. It was with these aims in mind that IRQO began publishing a monthly online publication called Cheragh.

Advocacy is of the utmost urgency in Iran because of the countless cases of LGBT Iranians who are left with no choice but to escape. They face threats on their lives from government agents enforcing homophobic laws. Even more sinister, some are targets of their own family members who are set upon honor-killing to rid the family of shame.

IRQO: A Review of the Restructured LGBT Rights Organization

Focusing on the situation of asylum-seekers and collecting funds on their behalf created questions of financial transparency and integrity for the board.  The board became increasingly concerned with the manner in which resources were being collected and allocated to refugees.

The board raised these concerns in its meetings and demanded a transparent auditing and monitoring process. These demands were particularly targeted at Mr. Parsi as he was the director in charge of all financial activities. The board requested Mr. Parsi address these concerns appropriately. In response, Mr. Parsi expressed hostility, and unilaterally issued a series of false press releases, announcing a change in the board of directors.

As such, Mr. Parsi breached his duty as a member and director, and left the board with no option but to collectively remove him as an officer. Later, during a general annual meeting, Mr. Parsi was also removed as a director. Except for this change, the board maintained its structure and mandate. Growing and reflecting on this experience, the board is committed to running the organization with renewed dedication and the utmost integrity.  

We are glad to report that the board has sought professional assistance to address the structural weaknesses that led to this situation. During this process, the board continued to maintain contact with asylum-seekers, providing them with financial assistance and advocacy services. We have also managed to launch new projects concerning our refugees who arrive in Toronto and the ones still in transit countries awaiting refugee status. We have improved the quality of our on-line publication and created a strong on-line editorial board. The on-line publication collects pieces authored by some of the best queer writers and poets residing in Iran and abroad.  It captures the present situation of Iranian LGBTs communities and how they would like to be supported by the outside world.     

With an increased number of members and supporters from the United States, Europe and various cities in Canada and Iran, IRQO’s new board of directors will pursue its missions and goals with renewed efficacy and vigor.

We hope to attract and maintain the support of LGBT organizations in Canada and around the world so that we can, in turn, support the Iranian LGBTs to find social justice and a life not threatened by anxieties and fear of execution in their homeland or deportation from their country of refuge.

We are glad to report that our number of clients and supportive members has notably increased since the changes that took place in the board. Many members of the Iranian LGBTs community have expressed interest in getting involved with the work of the organization; a network is gradually forming, keen to provide support and prevent the isolation that has previously resulted in sad incidents of serious depression and suicide.

Current Directors:

Roshan Borhan:  Roshan is a committed bi-sexual human rights activist and a student of human rights law. Her community and academic involvements with social justice, feminist and sexual diversity issues make her an asset to the board. Roshan has written the first extensive academic paper on the politics of transgenderism in Iran and the pressure on queer populations to undergo sex change operations in order to fit into binary gender norms.

Sam Kosha: Sam is a young gay professional with a strong sense of ethics, justice and commitment. He has been greatly influential in resolving IRQO’s problems over the past few months, and setting up a professional work structure for the operation of the organization. His technical expertise and his wealth of experience with community and professional organizations make him indispensable to IRQO.

Niaz Salimi: Niaz is a heterosexual, and the pioneer Iranian human rights activist who has been in the field for more than 20 years and is known to the Iranian community no less than to the Canadian institutions and organizations such as Muslim Canadian Congress (President), Canadian Muslim Union (Director), Center for Thought, Dialog and Human Rights in Iran (Director), National Ethnic Press (Member), Toronto Coalition to Stop the War (Member), Canadian Peace Alliance (Member) and many others. She has been working in collaboration with UN offices regarding refugee cases for over a decade and as a writer and journalist tried to draw attention to the cases of Violation of Human Rights through her articles and lectures.

Saghi Ghahraman: Saghi is one of the strongest voices in Iran’s contemporary poetry, PEN Canada’s writer in exile since 2002, and the first openly Iranian lesbian who has written extensively on the controversial issue of homosexuality and gender fluidity against the oppressive norms of Iranian culture. Her interview caused Iran’s largest newspaper to be shut down by the regime last year when the paper published her views on the gender of language. Presently she is the president of the organization.

Hamid Parnian: Hamid is one of the pioneer gay bloggers in Iran who begun their campaign a decade ago, is also among the leading figures in the group. He is an essayist, translator of queer theory, and the poet of the chain of Pseudo Poems, a blend of Quranic verses and gay love-stories. He left his M.A. in Philosophy of Education half done and fled Iran to escape arrest.  Hamid Parnian is waiting resettlement to Canada in Turkey. He just took over chief-editing Cheraq on June 2009. 

Ferdous Bamdad: Ferdous is a human rights activist with years of marketing/communication experience in LGBT non-profits organizations. Her expertise are in web-based social networking applications, as well as collaborative and productivity tools. Presently she is the communication director at IRQO.

The board has invited 3 Iranian gay activists residing in Toronto to join the board and an academic lesbian couple from the United States has agreed to collaborate.