The British gay rights group Outrage! has accused Iran of torturing the two into confessing that they had homosexual sex. It believes that the assault charges were a smokescreen to justify killing homosexuals.

Pictures of the hangings, on the ISNA student news agency website, showed the terrified young men crying as they were interviewed by state media in a lorry on the way to the gallows. Another picture showed hangmen in balaclavas tightening the nooses around their necks.

Iran’s religiously conservative judiciary decided that the pair had raped the 13-year-old at knifepoint while he was out cycling in the northeast province of Khorassan. The young men’s ages were not released but Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer for one of them, told ISNA that he was under 18, yet the judiciary had refused to spare him for being too young. The other accused was said to be 18 years old.

Iranian newspapers reported that the two were also given more than 200 lashes for theft and drinking alcohol. The press carried conflicting reports about the fate of three other men accused of involvement in the sexual assault. Qods newspaper said that they were still on the run, although the Mardomsalari daily reported that they had been jailed.

Mr Rezazadeh defended the two, saying they had not understood that gay relations and drinking were forbidden. Homosexuality is a crime in Iran, but the death penalty is normally reserved for murder, rape, armed robbery, adultery, drug trafficking and apostasy.

Many newspapers said that the pair were originally from the restive southwest province of Khuzestan, home to Iran’s Arab minority and the lion’s share of the Islamic republic’s oil wealth.

Peter Tatchell, an Outrage! spokesman, said that Britain should reconsider its relations with Iran because of its victimisation of homosexuals. “We urge the international community to treat Iran as a pariah state, break off diplomatic relations and impose trade sanctions,” he said.

Britain follows a policy of constructive engagement with Iran, alongside France and Germany, mainly directed at resolving an international dispute over whether Tehran is seeking nuclear arms.

The European Union has been pursuing a human rights dialogue with Iran, but last year the American pressure group Human Rights Watch said that abuses had risen since 2000.

Amnesty International said that Iran executed 159 people last year, a figure exceeded only by China. Under Iran’s religious law, the age of criminal culpability is defined as puberty, which most judges put at 15 for boys and nine for girls.

Iran has already drawn fire from international rights groups for executing minors. Last summer a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, was hanged in the Caspian port of Neka for sex before marriage. Medical reports, not allowed in court, had suggested that she was mentally ill.

The clerical judiciary has repeatedly said that it is preparing to overhaul its approach to juvenile crime and would institute a minimum age of 18 for long prison or death sentences. But human rights lawyers are not convinced that the reforms will be implemented soon.

CHILD DEATHS

Since 1990 11 child offenders reported executed

Jan 2004 Mohammad Mohammadzadeh, 21, executed for an alleged murder

June 2004 Ali, 16, sentenced to die for killing fellow high school student

Aug 2004 Atefeh Rajabi, 16, hanged for sex before marriage

Nov 2004 Vahid, 16, sentenced to death for murder of a friend said to have tried to abuse him

Jan 2005 30 under 18 detained and thought to be facing death sentence
Source: Amnesty International

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