The Guardian: Facts Are Sacred

The Guardian's Datablog collects "the data on which countries protect, and which countries persecute their homosexual citizens".
Death penalty!
Life sentences!
Here's a chart - it could be my computer being annoying, but this makes no sense at all.

"Relying on the texts of the laws themselves..."
This is beyond daft.
What this article doesn't say is if and when these laws are actually applied.
Gay sex was illegal in Scotland until 1980 - was anyone charged for an offence that they wouldn't have been charged with in England and Wales after 1967?
Is there any evidence that anyone has been executed in Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia "just for being gay"?
Or been imprisoned for life?
If this were actually the case, may I suggest the Keystone Cops might do a better job of policing The Gays?
Still it's a good excuse for a good old boo-hoo-hoo squish-squish fest.
Particularly if you're trying to raise money to pretend to fight for an emotive issue that's not actually happening.
To say that a law is enforced - or means anything - just because it's gathering dust on some statute book is as silly as saying you can still be hanged for striking a match in the Queen's shipyards.

I await Mona Chalabi's reply with interest...

Click to enlarge.

Bit confused about this, surely she can't mean her research about Iran for DATABLOG was based on one sentence she heard in a TV documentary last night? Asked for clarification...

PS Je me demande ce que Roland Barthes aurait fait de cette image? Honte?