Iran’s foreign minister reaffirmed last week his country's right to execute people for homosexual behavior.

Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the practice of killing gay people by saying that “these are moral principles concerning the behavior of people in general,” in an interview with German magazine Bild .

After the comments became public, the Jerusalem Post contacted U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who said that such behavior from Iran “[violates] basic UN principles. UN members should agree with the Declaration in order to be members. Criminalizing homosexuality violates the Declaration, plain and simple.”

Iran is not the only country to prosecute homosexuality, which is punishable by death in 11 other countries: Yemen, Brunei, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan.

Homosexuality is illegal according to Iran and punishable as long as the participants “are mature, of sound mind, and have acted of free will.” According to a Wikileaks article in 2008 Iran had killed around 4,000-6,000 gays from the Iranian Revolution in 1979 up to that point. Iran hanged a 19-year-old boy in 2016 after he was convicted of forced sodomy a year earlier. He had not been given access to a lawyer.