The secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights has been quoted as telling a visiting German lawmaker that homosexuality is a disease. 

“The West says that the marriage of homosexuals should be allowed under the human rights charter, however, we think it is sexual immorality and a disease,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Mohammad Javad Larijani as saying, according to dpa.

Fars reported that Larijani made his remarks during a meeting in Tehran with German lawmaker Tom Koenigs, who chairs the human rights committee in Germany’s parliament.

In Iran and under strict Islamic law, homosexuality is punishable by death.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad drew international criticism in 2007 when he said during a visit to Columbia University in the United States that there were no homosexuals in his country.

compiled from agency reports