Terrifying new pictures showing the effects of police lashings last month on an Iranian gay couple have been released by an Iranian LGBT organisation. Speaking to GayNZ.com by phone, Arsham Parsi of the Iranian Queer Organisation (IRQO) said the pictures (shown on the link below this article) were taken three weeks after the ‘lashing' punishment was inflicted on the two men by Iranian authorities. The gay couple – ‘Farnam', 23, (left) and ‘Farsad', 26, escaped from Iran to Turkey last Saturday. They were arrested when police broke into their home in Tehran. Farsad's life as an out gay man was discovered by police intelligence who found his ‘weblog' stories and pictures on the internet. Farsad and Farnam were charged with both “organising immoral parties” and with the crime of ‘tafhkiz', which can be translated as intercrural sex or interfemural sex. He was sentenced to weeks of detention before being lashed by police. “Farsad called me after his punishment. He couldn't speak. He was in so much pain,” Parsi explains. “Farsad asked me 'why they did this, just because of who we are, for being gay? “The police told them, ‘The 80 lashes are just for your immoral parties. For your tafkhiz you will get a lot more.'” Fearful of imprisonment and more torture on the tafkhiz charge, the couple fled Iran days before their trial. Farsad and Farnam are among five new refugees in Turkey fleeing persecution in Iran. Two of the others gay, and one of them transgendered. They arrived on the same train last Saturday, says Parsi. “One of the guys arrived without a penny. He completely needs support, and for the moment he is living in one of our safe houses in Turkey, where we have eight people already living in a tiny two-bedroom house.” The new photos come a week after eighty members of the Iranian gay community were arrested by security personnel in Isfahan. IRQO fear that the arrestees lives are in danger. Ref: GayNZ.com, IRQO (m)