Talk:Isfahan/Archive 2

Strange name
In the opening paragraph the city is called Eşfahān. What is that ş letter? I know that ص has a special sound in Arabic, but isn't ص in Persian the same as the regular s? I can't find this transcription anywhere at Persian language or Persian phonology.

I'm changing it to Esfahan. --Amir E. Aharoni 12:15, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Last version of content
Noting here for other editors usage - this was the last version that was in the article before being removed entirely. -- Banj e b oi   02:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

LGBT
The LGBT community is fragmented with gender minorities seen as having a treatable disease whereas homosexuality is a crime punishable by death under theocratic Islamic law. On May 10, 2007, Esfahān police arrested 87 people at a birthday party, including 80 suspected gay men, beating and detaining them through the weekend. All but 17 of the men were released; those who remained in custody were believed to have been wearing women's clothing. Gay men are treated more harshly than lesbians; some gay men undergo sex changes (which the late Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini declared permissible in a fatwa) as the only way to avoid persecution. Photos of the beaten men were released by the Toronto-based Iranian Queer Organization. According to Human Rights Watch, in February 2008 police in Esfhan raided a party in a private home and arrested 30 men, who were held indefinitely without a lawyer on suspicion of homosexuality. According to The Boroumand Foundation, there are records of at least 107 executions with charges related to homosexuality between 1979 and 1990 in Iran.

Requested delete
As Esfahan is the "correcter" alternative spelling of Isfahan (according to Encyclopedica Britannica), please delete this so Isfahan can be moved here. MadMaxDog 14:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that "MadMaxDog"'s opinion is correct and this article should be delete soon!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.158.171.189 (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that these two guys' opinion is right.--Javadz 1385 (talk) 08:11, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

deleted paragraph

 * "On May 10, 2007, Esfahān police arrested 87 people at a birthday party, including 80 suspected gay men, beating and detaining them through the weekend. All but 17 of the men were released; those who remained in custody were believed to have been wearing women's clothing.  Photos of the beaten men were released by the Toronto-based Iranian Queer Organization.  According to Human Rights Watch, in February 2008 police in Esfhan raided a party in a private home and arrested 30 men, who were held indefinitely without a lawyer on suspicion of homosexuality. "

was deleted. This is an article about an area containing 1.5 million people. It is the wrong place for a paragraph about one specific event that is simply the police arresting a handful of people. What about all the executions there over the last 10 years? What of all the commerce occuring daily? This paragraph does belong in wikipedia. Just not in this article. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You are wrong on this, and you can look at any article of a city--Try Los Angeles, where the beating of Rodney King is mentioned; or Barrow, Alaska, where 30 Days of Night is mentioned--and belongs in the history of the city; there are multiple sources, so you should perhaps start citing policy and guideline, as I will do, to support your position. How is two separate incidents involving over 100 people "a handful"?  Do you have information on "all the executions" that have happened in Esfahan?  Then why don't you add it? -- David  Shankbone  21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I also support the inclusion of this information. This is a timely topic that is relevant to any discussion of this city, just as the hanging of those two boys a couple of years ago is relevant to Masshad (let me check to see what has become of that, come to think of it.) Haiduc (talk) 22:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree to remove it, look at Neutral point of view section "Undue weight". I think this event is not important enough to have 25% of a description about modern age of a big city, even if you can cite 100 more gay-news website which reported this event, it does not mean this paragraph belongs to this page. I suggest to make a page about gay news in the world and write all of this stories their.(Koohkan (talk) 08:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC))
 * That actually would violate NPOV - we don't segregate information away because we don't like it - we report it dispassionately. It would be more constructive to add relevant notable points that have brought Esfahān to international attention. I assume there are a few. What are they? Did they get prominent international media attention? This information is the best sourced on the page so it would also help to add sources to teh rest of the article. --  Banj e  b oi    09:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved this into it's own section under culture - this has the added benefit of also being further down so less prominent in the article generally. I've also added a bit of context to the issue to frame it for those looking for this information. --  Banj e  b oi    11:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, this is an article on the city and not on LGBT rights in Iran. What has happened here is not typical of the city, but of the country, so put the information there in the relevant article on LGBT rights in Iran or human rights of Iran, and maybe even Iran itself. That is, if this incident is even worth mentioning as there were many other incidents of this type and this one did not even make headline news with major news outlets (judging from the sources given here). As opposed to Rodney King which made headline news everywhere for weeks, and the beating of Rodney King caused a riot, and had thus clear consequences for Los Angeles and the history of Los Angeles, as opposed to this crackdown (so far, of course that can change). I do not doubt the notability of this event (well, I do not think that it warrants an own article), but the relevant policy here is WP:Undue weight, and I have to wonder how the inclusion of this incident can be justified when it was only mentioned temporarily in specialized news outlets, and with all reports giving no indication that this incident had any major impact on Isfahan or Iran (so far). Even if it would have made headlines in major news outlets, news reports are a bad sources for editing articles on cities like Isfahan given the systematic bias of English-language news and given that news typically do not cover anything that is not recent. Well, recentism is one of the plagues of Wikipedia anyway. If we would do that, well then this article would be solely about the nuclear industry and human rights violations in Isfahan, both not very relevant when it comes to a city that has a history of several thousand years and is one of the largest Iranian cities. As a comparison, looking at the featured articles onNew York City, the NYC articles does not even mention the Stonewall riots, which was a historically significant event (as opposed to the Isfahan crackdown). And even if it would be included in the NYC article, we would hardly devote two paragraphs on the Stonewall riots. Голубое сало/Blue Salo (talk) 05:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason that paragraph does not go in this article is the same reason it does not go in Earth. It belongs in wikipedia and indeed exists at LGBT rights in Iran where it fits in quite nicely. Undue weight is a very important editorial judgement criteria. Sometimes people who have a conflict of interest (being financially or emotionally invested or involved with a subject) honestly do not see that their editorial judgement is distorted when it comes to encyclopedically writing about those things. That's why we have a WP:COI guideline. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The section was moved and now has been trimmed to help address issues. Disagree this information doesn't belong here, the sources quite clearly refer to Esfahān and had this taken place in another city would likely go in that article instead. I've removed the information that is covered better elsewhere and left just enough to contextualize why the incidents were considered a matter for the police and possible motives for men dressing in female garments. This section remains far better sourced that the rest of the article so clean-up efforts should likely address some of the problems the article has over all instead of targeting information that is uncomfortable. --  Banj e  b oi    20:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That is certanly a vast improvement. It now reads more like a proper encyclopedia article and less like a newspaper. But I still have some questions in my mind about the extent the Wikipedia LGBT people are engaging in COI POV pushing. As in I actually don't know if what they are doing is going over the line or not. So I left a note at WP:ANI. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Still, this section has no place here. The section has nothing specific to say about Esfahan except for the crackdown. But this crackdown is only a minor incident that has no relevance for an article about the city. We don't mention anything that is in the news in other city articles, except for those events that have historical significane. And with good reasons, because Wikipedia is not for news reports. Besides I am appalled by the behaviour of some editors involved. Selective canvassing, vandalism templates when there was no vandalism, condescending attitutes towards newbies ("I've been here for years, and I'm undoubtedly correct about this issue" or ignoring the valid arguments of Koohkan that this is not a newspage and that this section violates undue weight, and so on), and worst of all the replacement of assume good faith with assume homophobia. Голубое сало/Blue Salo (talk) 03:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I see no evidence this is considered a significant part of Esfahān. The fact that editors may want it to be doesn't make it so. Frankly, I find the suggestion this is comparable to the Rodney King beating/LA riots one if the most ludicrious things I've read for a while (indeed it brings to mind a comment made by another David, but perhaps I shouldn't go there). BTW, the fact that it involves 100 people is hardly in itself enough to make it significant. From memory, Corey Delaney's party involve dup to 500 people but there's no mention of it in Melbourne as we can hopefully all agree there shouldn't be because it's a trivial thing that is of no great significant to Melbourne even if it did involve 500 people. This may not be so trivial, but there's still no evidence it's significant enough to warrant addition to this article Nil Einne (talk) 18:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well I'm not going to dig through to further research whatever impact and again try to address the stated concerns. It's obvious that it's a continual target for whatever reasons and I don't want to further be implicated as misbehaving in any way. I tried to address the stated concerns but my efforts didn't seem to matter - hopefully the article will improve but I don't see my involvement here as in my best interest. Good luck to all who are working on it. -- Banj e  b oi   19:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The ANI report referred to by WAS 4.250 Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive479 has been archived without any admin action having been taken since it's a content issue and should be discussed here on the article talk page. — Becksguy (talk) 05:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Esfahan is correct. Esfahanian use Esfahan, we have not Isfahan, this is Arabic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ehsan1356 (talk • contribs) 03:57, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Escalation of Arbitrary Arrests & Harassment of LGBT in Esfahān
I can understand that those that argue against the deleted paragraph think it's WP:NOT#NEWS. But I don't think they have read the sources provided. If they had, they would have found out that there has been increased attacks against gay men, transgendered and cross dressers in Iran, and in Esfahān specifically because, according to the Gay City News, "Esfahan is Iran's third largest city, with a population of 1,600,000, and is also home to one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, and thus is under tight police control and surveillance." The specific event originally in the removed paragraph was one of a pattern of at least four recent attacks in this city. The Basij thugs severely beat those they and the theocratic government dislike. Many are jailed and some executed also. The section should be written as a short summary to refer to the increase in attacks and point to LGBT rights in Iran where this and the other specific events belong. That there is a pattern of anti LGBT violence and human rights violations is clearly an appropriate comment to make about the city, just as Mashhad and Mashhad are appropriate in the Mashhad article. And just as New York Draft Riots of 1863 (in which hundreds of Blacks were lynched) is linked with New York City and Rodney King is linked with Los Angeles, the city of Laramie, WY is linked to the Matthew Sheppard murder, or should be. These are all human rights violations and to delete or whitewash them is censorship. Otherwise, all we will have is insipid and untrue (through omission) travel brochures about cities. The fact that the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, both highly respected human rights watchdog organizations reported it, speaks volumes. The article is a mess as it doesn't do justice to the rich cultural and historic aspects of the city. But LGBT issues also need to be appropriately mentioned, in accordance with WP:UNDUE. — Becksguy (Becksguy (talk) 10:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)talk:Becksguy|talk]]) 09:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * So I read the article, but nothing in the article says that this incident is specific to Esfahan, it rather establishes that it is specific to the country. Yes, the article claims that Esfahan is under tight police control, but that does not imply that the situation for gays is different in Esfahan than in other Iranian cities. All your other points have been addressed above. And there is really no need to make allegations of censorship and whitewash. No one here has said that we do not want to mentio human rights violations or LGBT issues, but they must be notable, and this incident is not as evidenced by the limited media coverage, by the small number of people affected, and by the lack of impact this incident had on the city. Голубое сало/Blue Salo (talk) 15:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Again most of your comparisons are ridiculous. The Rodney King case involved the largest riot in the US in a long time causing nearly a billion of dollars of damage and 53 deaths. The case itself was extremely widely reported throughout the world even before the riots. It is a key part of the history of LA that will be mentioned in most historical overviews of the city. They New York draft riots were "the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself". Comparing these two to the Eshfan case are ludicrious and I personally can't be bothered further debating this issue as long as we continue to have such insane comparisons. Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nil Einne please, you could have simply stated your concern without injecting "ridiculous", "ludicrious" and "insane comparisons". We can disagree without being disagreeable and comment on teh content rather than characterizing their comments. This is the English wikipedia and this incident was the first introduction many English-speakers have had to this city. Some feel there is a place for the material and others disagree, we can agree to disagree without personalizing the issue. -- Banj e  b oi   22:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * We reap what we sow, you are really the last one (together with David Shankbone) who should complain about the tone of the discussion here. Голубое сало/Blue Salo (talk) 18:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * BlueSalo, sorry to miss this comment earlier but I can't speak for David Shankbone but I think your comment towards me is unwarranted at best. I can certainly comment on the tone of comments when they are personalized and directed at other editors instead of the content and improvements of the article. Please stay on point to discussing the content rather than the contributors. -- Banj e  b oi   14:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I started my first comment by saying that I understood the arguments from the opposition as a indication that I was looking to discuss the issues. My mention of the NYC draft riots was a bad example in making a point that cities and events get linked. Mea culpa. However, excluding any resultant fallout, the Rodney King beating and arrest by cops as an initial event was not that different from the beatings and arrests in Esfahān, as initial events. Except that Rodney King was just one person. There have been many many more events in many places that were never covered. They are all human rights violations that either did, or didn't precipitate coverage, riots, marches, or other responses, and what happens after an event is often a matter of happenstance. And the comparison of these events in Esfahān with the judicial murder of the two gay teenagers in Mashhad and the gay bias murder of Matthew Sheppard in Laramie holds, even if the draft riots doesn't. Because of systemic bias, events in non English speaking and non-Western countries are going to be exceptionally underreported here in the US. There is also systemic bias against full and neutral coverage of LGBT issues in many places. The fact that anything from an extremist theocratic dictatorship was reported is a miracle. LGBT related human rights violations in Esfahān are newsworthy, are notable, and are reliably sourced. All the details belong in the article on LGBT rights in Iran, but a summary sentence or two belongs in this article because Esfahān is a focal point of the current escalation of LGBT rights violations in Iran, as documented specifically by the Gay City News, and by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. — Becksguy (talk) 19:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This issue and many other violation of human rights in Iran are according to the constitutive and national laws of Iran, these laws are well known for many Islamic countries (see Homosexuality and Islam) and there is no censorship and miracle about the news coverage of legal issues, even president of Iran confirmed the existence of these laws in his recent interview with CNN. What has happened in Esfahan or Mashhad have been according to these national laws and are not special of these cities. Such issues can be covered in Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As the LGBT rights are not respected in Iranian laws and according to the law there are punishment for homosexuality, it make no sense to talk about escalation. Laws are laws and we cannot talk about escalation of a law.(Koohkan (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC))

Laws may be laws, but the enforcement of those laws can be selective and the enforcement effort can be increased or decreased. I think it's obvious that no country has the resources to look for and find every violation of every law by everyone and to fully process all of them. Therefore typically enforcement will be subject to political pressure, allocation of resources, social pressure, expediency, priorities, and other forces. Like many other social issues, enforcement also tends to be cyclic. So there is no reason we can't discuss the escalation of the morality laws. It's been well sourced and commented on that there is a recent increase in attacks against those men that appear gay or wear womens clothes in Iran generally, as well as specifically in Esfahān. The city of Esfahān is one of the focal points of the current escalation of LGBT rights violations and that needs to be mentioned in this article. So I disagree, these violations are special to these cities. If these human rights violations are actually not violations of Iranian national law, they are still international human rights violations, including being against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty which Iran signed. — Becksguy (talk) 10:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)