Iranian Actor Apologises after Tweeting Support for US Gay Marriage Ruling

Iranian actor Bahram Radan takes a selfie during the photocall
for the film Ice Age at the Fadjr international film festival in Tehran.

THE GUARDIAN: Bahram Radan deleted tweet in support of US supreme court decision after criticism from hardline media and homophobic abuse

A leading Iranian actor has apologised after coming under pressure over a tweet he posted in support of a historic US supreme court ruling on gay marriage.

Bahram Radan, who is known as the Iranian Brad Pitt, created controversy in the country when his tweet hailed a verdict last week which made same-sex marriage a legal right across the entirety of the US. Homosexuality remains a taboo subject inside the Islamic republic and is punishable by death.

“The US supreme court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is legal was historic, perhaps on the scale of the end of slavery ... from Lincoln to Obama,” the award-winning actor tweeted in Persian at the weekend.

But within a few hours, after many users bombarded him with homophobic abuse and hardline media criticised him, Radan deleted the tweet.

The ultra-conservative Keyhan newspaper, whose director is appointed directly by the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for Radan to be put on a blacklist and said he had been summoned to the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance for questioning, a claim which could not be independently verified. The ministry is in charge of vetting all cultural materials, including films, before they are released.

On Thursday, Keyhan published a letter of apology from Radan, who has more than 900,000 followers on Instagram, in which he said he was clarifying his position on same-sex marriage.

The letter was addressed to the paper’s managing editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, a hardline figure who is notorious for targeting dissidents and opposition figures and orchestrating media campaigns against them.

“What was published on the internet as my opinion about the US supreme court’s ruling on gay marriage was a mistake and does not reflect the dignity of the Iranian people, for which I apologise,” he writes in the letter.

“We’re living in a country which celebrates marriage as a tradition of the prophet [Muhammad]. American laws have no bearing on the Islamic republic and gay marriage is reprehensible under our social and religious laws and according to our social values.” » | Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Thursday, July 2, 2015