IRAQI LGBT

Welcome To Iraqi Lgbt

2009-09-15T20:07:00.000+01:00

مثليي العراق

Donate to our PayPal Account : iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk .

Or make cheque payable to (IRAQI LGBT) send it to our address:

Iraqi Lgbt22 Notting Hill Gate

Unit 111London,

W11 3JE

United Kingdom

Tel: 079-819 59453

iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk

Friends can send Donations to IRAQI LGBT:

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi's facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighboring countries.

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العراق – يجب وقف نزيف الدم العراقي فورا

النظام العراقي الحاكم بدعم من قوى الاحتلال الامريكي والبريطاني هو المسؤول عن تفاقم وانتشار العنف الطائفي والمذهبي

غداة دخول قوات الاحتلال الى العراق انتشرت الفوضى والفساد وفقد اي احساس بالامن والامان لدى المواطن العراقي العادي.ومع ظهور الاحزاب الدينية المدعومة من قبل المرجعيات, وانتشار المليشيات وفرق الموت وتورط الاحزاب في قتل المواطنين وارتكاب الفظاعات من تطهير عرقي على الهوية والخلفية المذهبية .ولم تستثنى الاقليات الدينية والمذهبية واقليات اخرى مثل مثليي الجنس الذين تم قبولهم واثبتوا انسجامهم واندماجهم في المجتمع العراقي على مر الازمان وخصوصا في عهد النظام السابق.اما اليوم وبعد ظهور حكومات تستقي قراراتها من مرجعيات النجف, ولعل هيمنة رجال الدين في الحياة السياسية واليومية في الشارع والمشهد العراقي خير دليل على ما الى اليه العراق اليوم.

Gay Life After Saddam

2009-07-13T19:42:00.003+01:00

Guardian review

What terrific reporting from Aasmah Mir in Gay Life After Saddam (BBC Radio 5 Live). It looked at the grim reality for gay, lesbian and transgender people living in Iraq, and the reasons for this savage new persecution. In a "liberated" country, this group finds itself yearning for the former regime. "We used to go every Thursday by the Tigris," said one man, his voice suffused with longing, "and we'd drink and swim. It was very relaxing."

Nobody in the programme sounded relaxed: Mir spoke to those in exile, in hiding, people who had been tortured or issued with death threats for helping others escape. Their stories ranged from sad to gruesome. We heard one Iraqi man tell how his boyfriend was abducted and murdered. "They had thrown his corpse in the garbage," he explained. "His genitals were cut off and a piece of his throat had been cut out." We heard, too, about the torture: rape, and also "glue in the anus and then force-feeding laxatives".

Some of those fleeing Iraq seek asylum in Britain and there were tales of seemingly harsh treatment by the authorities. Mir couldn't explore these, as both David Miliband and Phil Woolas refused interviews for this programme. Shame on them, you were left thinking.

Listen to the show (60')

Gay Life After Saddam

paul canning's Podcast

Iraqi LGBT to apply for charitable status, provides interim accounts

2009-07-13T19:27:00.006+01:00

Media release

For immediate use

Iraqi LGBT to apply for charitable status, provides interim accounts

10 July 2009

The Iraqi LGBT organisation has today provided interim accounts for its Syria operations (see below) and announced that it will resubmit an application for charitable status.

Based in the UK, the group works to aid lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people within Iraq as well as many who have fled for exile in nearby countries. It runs a 'safe house' in Baghdad, Iraq, where 20 LGBT people are currently housed and where previously 70 people have stayed for various periods.

The safe house will be featured in a documentary on BBC Radio this Sunday. It includes interviews with the person who runs it as well as some of those who live there.

Since it was founded Iraqi LGBT has provided safety for over 100 people, including supporting 70 people financially. It has provided support for 23 people outside Iraq including shelter, medication and food.

The reapplication for charitable status follows a change in the group's aims which removed working the requirement to work for change in Iraqi law, which resulted in a previous rejection by the UK's Charity Commission as this was regarded as 'political'. It also follows the work of the group's volunteer accountant on preparing accounts to meet charity commissioners’ standards. In addition the group has become a Company limited by guarantee (No. 06954355).

Iraqi LGBT’s accountant Josh Botham ATT ACPA ACCA IIT[dip] explained that - like others such as Amnesty International - the group has had to use circuitous routes in order to get funds to exiles, as well as pay bribes in order to secure release of people under real threat of death.

Botham said that as part of the application the group would publish full accounts on its website shortly.

Funding for the group in the past has come from the group's own members and donations including one in 2008 from the US Representative Jared Polis. He donated $10,000 (£6,853) via the Heartland Alliance to aid the project in Syria.

Polis' funding went to the Chicago based LGBT group Heartland Alliance to provide for five people to be moved from Iraq to Syria and to provide housing rent, food and other basic needs in Syria. This project ran between 1 June and 31 December 2008. Included in the cost was the living accommodation for the local administrator of the group.

Botham said that: "Providing the financial support involved a difficult money transfer process in order to avoid coming to the attention of Syrian authorities. Such an operation also meant that in order to safeguard the lives of these refugees, people were only informed on a need to know basis."

"Heartland Alliance [as grant provider] however insisted that our group should meet up with the Lebanese LGBT group, Helem, in November 2008, at that same time that some prominent members of Heartland Alliance visited Syria."

"The result was disastrous for our group, Iraqi LGBT. Some of our members were arrested by Syrian police in Damascas in (which city). With the help of a local lawyer, Iraqi LGBT managed to get these people released. However one of them was later to be deported back to Iraq."

Iraqi LGBT has experienced other difficulties in coordinating activities with Heartland Alliance. Another grant of $10,000 meant for Iraqi LGBT came to the group from the Elisabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trust, based in Chicago. Botham gave them a budget of how to allocate this money.

However communications broke down with the Heartland Alliance's representative when it was claimed that the last transfer of $4,000 had never been received by our sources in Iraq. Says Botham: “This underlines the perils of where we are working and who we are working with."

"Iraqi LGBT has supported another nine Iraqi refugees in Syria, as well as a safe house in Iraq and has had to spend money on freeing people from custody. Obviously in such situations one doesn't get a receipt."

"Between 1 June 2008 to 31 May 2009, the Polis supported project represented one sixth of the group's expenditure. Just under a quarter of the group's funding actually came from the group's founder, Ali Hili, his family and his partner."

Iraqi LGBT Chair Ali Hilli added: "We are confident that the charitable status will be accepted and will be a great help for the group. As we have been reporting for several years now, our people in Iraq are being killed and we desperately need more financial support to save them and where necessary move them out of Iraq."

"This work is dangerous and threatening. Even in London I am under real threat and have been forced to move as a result."

Donations for Iraqi LGBT can be made via PayPal. See the group's website at http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com for details.

ATTACHMENT

Syria underground Railroad Project

Covering the period from 1 June 2008 to 31 May 2009

Figures in US dollars

Total funding received from Heartland Alliance $15,520
Expenditure
Telephone cards and other means of communication $413
Basic food and supplies $486
Travel costs including passports and visa’s (for 5 people, from Bagdad to Damascus by road) $3,000
Legal fees (to prevent an individual from being imprisoned in Iraq) $4,000
Rent (Damascus) $7,000
Transportation costs (inside Syria to move nine Iraqi LGBT refugees when necessary
to another safe house) $413
Other costs $208
Total $15,218
Balance left $2

Iraqi LGBT expenditure in Syria

In addition to the funding received from Heartland Alliance, Iraqi LGBT from its own resources has supported another nine Iraqi LGBT refugees who had already made there own way to Syria.

The Heartland Alliance would not allow us to include the cost of transferring the money as part of their donation. We paid for it ourselves and we have therefore listed this bank fee under our own expenditure

Figures in pounds sterling

Covering the period from 1 June 2008 – 31 May 2009

Rent, food and other amenities like electricity (For two safe houses including any bribes paid.) £8,731
Communication (mobile phones, phone cards, internet etc) £95
Bank charges £415
Total £9,241

ENDS

Iraqi gays condemn Obama/Clinton inaction on pogrom

2009-06-03T19:58:00.004+01:00

Embassy statement 'offensive and insulting'

Iraqi lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT) has spoken of their deep anger and offence at a statement by the Baghdad US Embassy concerning the violence and murder campaign against gays.

In a response to US Rep. Jared Polis, following a meeting with Iraqi government officials, chargé d’affaires Patricia Butenis said "We have no evidence that [the Iraq government's] security forces are in any way involved with these militias.

"Iraqi LGBT has been reporting for four years on police involvement with the terror campaign.

Group members speaking from Iraq said that they are "fed up with such 'political' words" and that the Americans are doing nothing to stop the terror campaign against them. They believe that the priority for Hillary Clinton's State Department and Obama's administration is to not upset the Iraqi government as they have no other allies within the country.

They believe that no-one is trying to help them and feel that the current timid diplomacy "will not do much good".

"These words from the American embassy officials are insulting to us, and to those many friends of ours who have murdered. This statement is evidence that the Iraqi government is doing nothing to protect its citizens.

''They are responsible for these crimes through bringing no one to justice, refusing to acknowledge their police's involvement and providing no rights for Iraqi LGBT in law."

"People should not forget that what's happening in Iraq right now is a direct result of the unlawful US invasion.

"Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Program, has also criticism the State Department. In an interview with EdgeBoston, responding to State spokesperson John T. Fleming's pointed statement that 'homosexuality is not a crime in Iraq', Long responded that the fact that homosexuality is not a crime punishable by death "would be an interesting fact if the law, or the rule of law, mattered in Iraq.

"Long has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Iraq where he spoke to 25 survivors from Baghdad and other cities, including Najaf, Basra and Samarra.

As a consequence of what they found, Human Rights Watch has been organizing ways for as many LGBT Iraqis as possible to get out of the country.

Colorado U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who has spoken about Iraqi government involvement with the violence, has written with Reps. Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank to U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill.

"As LGBT Americans and cochairs of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, we are disturbed and shocked at allegations that Ministry of the Interior Security Forces may be involved in the mass persecution and execution of LGBT Iraqis ... The persecution of Iraqis based on sexual orientation or gender identity is escalating and is unacceptable regardless of whether these policies are extrajudicial or state-sanctioned.

"The letter called on the U.S. embassy in Iraq to "prioritize the investigation" of the allegations and work with the Iraqi government to end the executions of LGBT Iraqis. Polis is drafting another letter that would be signed by more members of Congress and sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

2009-04-08T11:11:00.000+01:00

Iraq’s Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder

BAGHDAD — The relative freedom of a newly democratic Iraq and the recent improvement in security have allowed a gay subculture to flourish here. The response has been swift and deadly.

In the past two months, the bodies of as many as 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City, the police and friends of the dead say. Most have been shot, some multiple times. Several have been found with the word “pervert” in Arabic on notes attached to their bodies, the police said.

“Three of my closest friends have been killed during the past two weeks alone,” said Basim, 23, a hairdresser. “They had been planning to go to a cafe away from Sadr City because we don’t feel safe here, but they killed them on the way. I had planned to go with them, but fortunately I didn’t.”
Basim, who preferred to be called “Basima” — the feminine version of his name — wears his hair long for Iraq. It falls to just below the ear. His ears are pierced, uncommon for Iraqi males. White makeup covers his face, a popular look for gay men in Sadr City who say they prefer light skin.
Though risky, his look is one result of the overall calm here that has allowed Iraqis to enjoy freedoms unthinkable two years ago: A growing number of women walk the streets unveiled, a few even daring to wear dresses above the knee. Families gather in parks for cookouts, and more people have begun to venture out at night.

But that has not changed the reality that Iraq remains religious, conservative — and still violent. The killers, the police say, are not just Shiite death squads, but also tribal and family members shamed by their gay relatives. (And the recent spate of violence has seemed aimed at more openly gay men, rather than homosexuality generally.)

Clerics in Sadr City have urged followers to help root out homosexuality in Iraqi society, and the police have begun their own crackdown on gay men.
“Homosexuality is against the law,” said Lt. Muthana Shaad, at a police station in the Karada district, a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. “And it’s disgusting.”

For the past four months, he said, officers have been engaged in a “campaign to clean up the streets and get the beggars and homosexuals off them.”

Gay men, he said, can be arrested only if they are seen engaging in sex, but the police try to drive them away. “These people, we make sure they can’t get together in a coffee shop or walk together in the street — we make them break up,” he said.

Gay men and lesbians in Iraq have long been among the targets of both Shiite and Sunni death squads, but their murders have been overshadowed by the hundreds of overall weekly casualties during the height of sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007.

In 2005, the country’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a religious decree that said gay men and lesbians should be “punished, in fact, killed.” He added, “The people should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.” The language has since been removed from his Web site.

In recent months, groups of gay men have been taking greater chances, gathering in cafes and other public places in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf and other cities. On a recent night in Sadr City, several, their hair parted down the middle, talked as they quietly sipped tea at a garishly lighted cafe, oblivious to the stares of passers-by.

Basim, who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety, said he knew at least 20 young men from Sadr City’s large but hidden gay community who had disappeared during the past two months. He said he had learned later that each was found dead. After three of his friends were killed, he stayed inside his house for a week. Recently he has begun to go out again.

“I can’t stay at home all day,” he said. “I need to see my friends.”
Publicly, the Iraqi police have acknowledged only the deaths of six gay men in the neighborhood. But privately, police officials say the figure is far higher.

The chief of a Sadr City police station, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to reporters, said family members had probably committed most of the Sadr City killings. He played down the role of death squads that had once been associated with the Mahdi Army, the militia that controlled Sadr City until American and Iraqi forces dislodged them last spring.

“Our investigation has found that these incidents are being committed by relatives of the gays — not just because of the militias,” he said. “They are killing them because it is a shame on the family.”

He said families typically refused to cooperate with the investigation or even to claim the bodies. No arrests have been made in the killings.
At the same time, though, clerics associated with Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric with significant influence in Sadr City, have devoted a portion of Friday Prayer services to inveighing against homosexuality.

“The community should be purified from such delinquent behavior like stealing, lying and the effeminacy phenomenon among men,” Sheik Jassem al-Mutairi said during his sermon last Friday. Homosexuality, he said, was “far from manhood and honesty.”

Abu Muhaned al-Diraji, a Sadrist official in Sadr City, said the clerics were in no way encouraging people to kill gay men.

“All we are doing is giving advice to people to take care of their sons,” Mr. Diraji said. He acknowledged, however, that some of the killing had been committed by members of “special groups,” or death squads.

“In general, it is the families that are killing the gay son, but I know that there are gunmen involved in this, too,” he said. “But we disavow anybody committing this kind of crime and we encourage the people to follow the law.”

In addition to the killings, a Sadr City cafe frequented by gay men recently burned down under mysterious circumstances.

Some young gay men in Sadr City have become nihilistic about the ever present threat.

“I don’t care about the militias anymore, because they’re going to kill me anyway — today, tomorrow or the day after,” said a man named Sa’ad, who has been taking estrogen and has developed small breasts. “I hate my community and my relatives. If they had their way, the result would be one gunshot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/middleeast/08gay.html?hp

Friends can send Donations to IRAQI LGBT: The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi's facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world. Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighbouring countries.

Donate to our PayPal Account : iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk .Or make cheque payable to (IRAQI LGBT) send it to our address:Iraqi Lgbt22 Notting Hill GateUnit 111London,W11 3JEUnited Kingdom

URGENT - Iraq: Letter From a Member of Iraqi LGBT who Pleads for Help “Before It’s Too Late”

2009-04-07T11:10:00.002+01:00

Is there anyone to help me before it’s too late? That is the question asked by a member of Iraqi-LGBT in Baghdad, who says he is to be executed, in a letter released at the weekend by Iraqi-LGBT in London.

The handwritten letter in Arabic was received by the group in London last week, the writer claiming that he has received the death sentence for belonging to Iraqi-LGBT – a banned organisation in the country.

Releasing the letter to UK Gay News, Iraqi-LGBT requested independent translation – and this was done by two separate translators in the USA.

“We are confident that the letter is genuine,” Ali Hili said, adding that the name on the letter is known to him.

“I have known this person for the past 18 months,” he said.

“At the moment, we think that there are five gays among the 128 people who are reported to be awaiting execution,” Mr. Hili said.

And he added that while the Ministry of Interior is officially denying that there are five people sentenced to death for having contact with Iraqi-LGBT, he has spoken to someone in the Ministry who has confirmed the five death sentences.

In the letter released by Iraqi-LGBT in London, the writer claims that at his court case he was not permitted to defend himself, or even get legal representation.

It is virtually impossible to check on the authenticity of the letter, which translated into English, with names and an address removed, says:

Call for help.

“My name is [name and address removed], Baghdad, Iraq.

I was detained at my residence December 15, 2008 after midnight, by the Ministry of Interior.

During the detention process, they hit me on the head and my rear end to make me confess that I am a member of the Iraqi-LGBT.

Later on the Ministry of Interior transferred me to the criminal justice court in al Karkh, and after a short trial I was sentenced to death.

I was sentenced without given the chance to defend myself or to hire an attorney. Two days later I was returned to the same place and was told that the execution will take place in two weeks.

Please pass this message to [my friend] in London. I just wish to tell him not to forget about my mother and siblings, I was their only supporter.

I am all hopeful that Allah will show Iraqis a life with no death sentences.
And lastly, I ask you for help.

Is there anyone to help me before it is too late?”

Gays killed in Baghdad as clerics urge clampdown

2009-04-05T09:48:00.002+01:00

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two gay men were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a local official said on Saturday, and police said they had found the bodies of four more after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is prohibited almost everywhere in the Middle East, but conditions have become especially dangerous for gays and lesbians in Iraq since the rise of religious militias after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein six years ago.

"Two young men were killed on Thursday. They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honor," a Sadr City official who declined to be named said.

The police source who declined to be named said the bodies of four gay men were unearthed in Sadr City on March 25, each bearing a sign reading "pervert" in Arabic on their chests.

Sermons condemning homosexuality were read at the last two Friday prayer gatherings in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum of some 2 million people. The slum is a bastion of support for fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia.

The Mehdi Army has frozen its activities over the last year and government forces have wrested control of the slum.

Many young men who might have cut their hair short and grown beards when religious gangs controlled much of Iraq now dress in a more Western style as government forces take back control.

Some are now accused of being gay, and residents of Sadr City say at least one coffee shop has become a gay hangout.

A member of the slum's Sadrist office said the Mehdi Army was not involved in the killings, but said homosexuality was now more widespread since the Mehdi Army lost control of the slum.
"This (homosexuality) has spread because of the absence of the Mehdi Army, the spread of sexual films and satellite television and a lack of government surveillance," said the office's Sheikh Ibrahim al-Gharawi, a Shi'ite cleric.

Homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq. A gay Iraqi man said any alleged crimes should be left to the law to deal with.

"If they've committed a crime, then there is the law. Killing is a big sin," he said, giving his name as Laith.

STOP EXECUTIONS OF GAY IRAQIS

2009-03-27T16:43:00.004Z

STOP EXECUTIONS OF GAY IRAQIS
MEMBERS OF IRAQI LGBT GROUP ON DEATH ROW
ACTION NEEDED TO HALT JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS

London, 30 March 2009

Urgent action is needed to halt the execution of 128 prisoners on death row in Iraq. Many of those awaiting execution were convicted for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality, according to IRAQI-LGBT, a UK based organisation of Iraqis supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Iraq.

According to Ali Hili of IRAQI-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week.

IRAQI-LGBT urgently requests that the UK Government, Human Rights Groups and the United Nations Human Rights Commission intervene with due speed to prevent this tragic miscarriage of justice from going ahead.

“We have information and reports on members of our community whom been arrested and waiting for execution for the crimes of homosexuality,’’ said Mr Hili. “Iraqi lgbt has been a banned from running our activities on Iraqi soil.”

“Raids by the Iraqi police and ministry of interior forces cost our group the disappearing and killing of 17 members working for Iraqi lgbt since 2005,” added Mr Hili.

“Death penalty has been increasing at an alarming rate in Iraq since the new Iraqi regime reintroduced it in August 2004.
In 2008 at least 285 people were sentenced to death, and at least 34 executed. In 2007 at least 199 people were sentenced to death and 33 were executed, while in 2006 at least 65 people were put to death. The actual figures could be much higher as there are no official statistics for the number of prisoners facing execution,” he said.

IRAQI LGBT is concerned that the Iraqi authorities have not disclosed the identities of those facing imminent execution, stoking fears that many of them may have been sentenced to death after trials that failed to satisfy international standards for fair trial.

Most are likely to have been sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), whose proceedings consistently fall short of international standards for fair trial. Some are likely to have. Allegations of torture are not being investigated adequately or at all by the CCCI. Torture of detainees held by Iraqi security forces remains rife.

Iraq’s creaking judicial system is simply unable to guarantee fair trials in ordinary criminal cases, and even less so in capital cases, with the result, we fear, that numerous people have gone to their death after unfair trials.

The Iraqi government must order an immediate halt to these executions and establish a moratorium on all further executions in Iraq, particularly since due process cannot be guaranteed. The state executing people for ‘morals’ crimes is also obviously unacceptable and deplorable.

Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to make public all information pertaining to the 128 people, including their full names, details of the charges against them, the dates of their arrest, trial and appeal and their current places of detention.

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi's facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.
Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Iraqi Lgbt
22 Notting Hill Gate
Unit # 111
London , W11 3JE
United Kingdom
Mob: ++44 798 1959 453
Website : http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Gay Iraqi could face death penalty if deportation goes ahead.

2009-02-05T15:02:00.000Z

Asylum seeker would become seventh gay Iraqi to be returned from the UK to country where homosexuality is punishable by death

A gay Iraqi man due for deportation tomorrow has been told by the UK Border Agency to conduct his relationships "in private" on his return to Iraq, where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Campaign group Iraqi LGBT says the asylum seeker will become the seventh gay Iraqi to be returned to the country by the UK, despite the country being one of only nine in the world where homosexual people are executed.

Though a ruling was made in September 2007 allowing two gay Iraqis to remain in the UK, campaigners working on behalf of the man facing deportation tomorrow say his case was held too long ago to benefit from the change in case law achieved in 2007.

Keith Best, the director of the Immigration Advisory Service, told the Guardian that the government ought to give the asylum seeker a fresh hearing.

The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) has said that the man's homosexuality did not form the basis of his original asylum application in 2001 and that his subsequent conviction for seeking to stay in the country illegally makes him an untrustworthy defendant, undermining his claim to be gay.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats' housing spokeswoman, who is the Iraqi's MP, is perplexed by a recommendation from the UKBA that the Iraqi conduct his relationships in private.

The document says: "Even if your client's homosexuality were to be established it is viewed that it would be possible for your client to conduct such relationships in private on his return to Iraq. This would allow your client to express his sexuality, albeit in a more limited way than he could do elsewhere."

Teather, the MP for Brent East, said: "Immigration ministers need to show some humanity. If this deportation goes ahead there is a terrible risk that this man will be killed. How can we possibly claim to be a country that values human rights if we are willing to endanger a life in this way?"

Best said: "This is an incredible position. They [the UKBA] cannot say that on the one hand they do not believe him to be homosexual and then recommend ways in which he can cover up his homosexuality."

In September 2007 two gay victims of attempted assassination attempts by Shia Islamist death squads in Iraq were granted asylum in the UK after having their initial applications turned down by the Home Office despite compelling evidence of homophobic persecution.

That case overturned the claim that national governments did not recognise homophobic persecution as a legitimate ground for asylum under the 1951 refugee convention.

Homosexuality has been punishable by death in Iraq since 2001, when Saddam Hussein's government amended the country's penal code. The move was thought to be an overture to the country's Islamic conservatives, whose support Saddam latterly tried to win.

Iraqi LGBT says that more than 430 gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2003. Safe houses are reported to operate in Baghdad in which some 40 young gay men hide.

The asylum seeker is scheduled to leave the UK tomorrow on an 8.30am flight but this may be delayed since the government has yet to reply to the representations made on his behalf and he cannot be deported until that point.

Kurdish doctor jailed for writing about homosexual sex in Iraq.

2008-12-04T13:02:00.003Z

A leading press freedom organisation has called for the release from prison of a doctor sentenced to six months by a Kurdish judge for writing an medical article about sodomy.

Adel Hussein was convicted of offending public decency with his article in newspaper Hawlati and sentenced on November 24th in the city of Arbil, the capital of Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

Reporters Without Borders said:
"Sexual practices are part of the individual freedoms that a democratic state is supposed to promote and protect.

"Furthermore, Hussein did not defend homosexuality. He limited himself to describing a form of behaviour from a scientific viewpoint.

"We are astonished to learn that a press case has been tried under the criminal code.

"What was the point of adopting - and then liberalising - a press code in Iraq north region if people who contribute to the news media are still be tried under more repressive laws?"

RWB said Dr Hussein, a member of the Union of Kurdish Journalists and local TV presenter, was prosecuted as a result of a complaint brought by the city’s public prosecutor over a scientific article published in April 2007 that detailed the physical effects of sodomy.

He was fined 125,000 dinars (£72) in addition to his jail term.

The predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq is autonomous and has its own unicameral parliament.

In the rest of Iraq the deteriorating situation for gay and lesbian people has been documented by human rights groups.

A UN report in 2007 highlighted attacks on gays by militants and religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed.

"Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, which declared that gays and lesbians should be 'killed in the worst, most severe way possible," said Alli HIli of Iraqi LGBT.

"Since then, LGBT people have been specifically targeted by the Madhi Army, the militia of fundamentalist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as by the Badr organisation and other Shia death squads."

Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq & The Sexual Cleansing of Iraq (2008)

2008-12-03T11:51:00.004Z

Sexual cleansing in Iraq

2008-09-25T16:08:00.002+01:00

Islamist death squads are hunting down gay Iraqis and summarily executing them

WATCH the video link below – and weep
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uB7TcPGXlHY

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – 25 September 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/25/iraq.humanrights

STOP PRESS: This morning, after this article was published, news came from Iraq that the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad, Bashar, aged 27, has been assassinated in a barber shop. Militias burst in and sprayed his body with bullets.

The so-called improved security situation in Iraq is not benefiting all Iraqis, especially not gay ones. Islamist death squads are engaged in a homophobic
killing spree, with the active encouragement of leading Muslim clerics, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, as Newsweek recently revealed.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/155656

One of these clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Shia Islam, issued a fatwa urging the killing of lesbians and gays in the “worst, most severe way possible.”

http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18202189&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

The short film, Queer Fear - Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq, produced by David Grey for Village Film, documents the tragic fates of a several individual gay Iraqis. You can view it here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uB7TcPGXlHY

Watch and weep. A truly poignant and moving revelation about the terrorisation and murder of Iraqi lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Since this film was made, the killings have continued and, many say, got worse.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/gay.iraqis/index.html

For gay Iraqis there is little evidence of the transition to democracy. They don’t experience any new-found respect human rights. Life for them is even worse than under the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

It is a death sentence in today’s “liberated” Iraq to love a person of the same-sex, or for a woman to have sex outside of marriage, or for a Muslim to give up his / her faith or embrace another religion.

The reality on the ground is that theocracy is taking hold of the country, including in Basra, which was abandoned by the British military. In place of foreign occupation, the city’s inhabitants now endure the terror of fundamentalist militias and death squads. Those who are deemed insufficiently devout and pure are liable to be assassinated.

The death squads of the Badr Brigades and the Madhi Army are
targeting gays and lesbians, according to UN reports, in a systematic campaign of sexual cleansing. They proudly boast of their success, claiming that they have already exterminated all “perverts and sodomites” in many of the major cities.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/05/world/fg-iraqgay5
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008100&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008200&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18605093&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

You can view photos of a few of the LGBT victims of these summary executions here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72057594087304767/

My friends in Iraq have relayed to me the tragic story of five gay activists, who belonged to the underground movement gay rights movement, Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

Eye-witnesses confirm that they saw the men being led out of a house at gun-point by officers in police uniform. Yes, Iraqi police! Nothing has been heard of the five victims since then. In all probability, they have been executed by the police - or by Islamist death squads who have infiltrated the Iraqi police and who are using their uniforms to carry out so-called honour killings of gay people, unchaste women and many others.

The arrested and disappeared men were Amjad 27, Rafid 29, Hassan 24, Ayman 19 and Ali 21. As members of Iraq’s covert gay rights movement, for the previous few months they had been documenting the killing of lesbians and gays, relaying details of the murders to the outside world, and providing safe houses and support to other gay people fleeing the death squads.

Their abduction is just one of many outrages by anti-gay death squads. lslamist killers burst into the home of two lesbians in city of Najaf. They shot them dead, slashed their throats, and also murdered a young child who the women had rescued from the sex trade. The two women, both in their mid-30s, were members of Iraqi LGBT. They were providing a safe house for gay men on the run from death squads. By sheer luck, none of the men who were being given shelter in the house were at home when the assassins struck. They have since fled to Baghdad and are hiding in an Iraqi LGBT safe house there.

Large parts of Iraq are now under the de facto control of the militias and their death squad units. They enforce a harsh interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for what they denounce as “crimes against Islam.” These “crimes” include listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.

Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Bush and Brown-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s governing coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship. The allied occupation of Iraq is bad enough. But if the Madhi or Badr militias gain in influence and strength, as seems likely in the long-term, it could result in a reign of religious terror many times worse.

Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant. I campaigned against his blood-stained misrule for nearly 30 years. But while Saddam was President, there was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated in their homes and in the street by religious fanatics.

http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008362&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of lesbians and gays is much worse.
http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-gays-in-iraq-life-of-constant-fear.html

Even children suspected of being gay are abducted and later found shot in the head.
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008362&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

Lesbian and gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police, since the police are heavily infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. The death squads can kill with impunity. Pro-fundamentalist ministers in the Iraqi government are turning a blind eye to the killings, and helping to protect the killers. Some “liberation”.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. Since they don’t yet have a bank account, they request that cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More information on Iraqi LGBT or to make a donation by PayPal

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Kill

2008-08-27T08:27:00.002+01:00

Nobody wants to talk about gays in Iraq, much less who is killing them.

Lennox Samuels-Newsweek

When militiamen from the Mahdi Army came by the compact, two-story stone home in the Doura neighbourhood of Baghdad, they weren't looking for Sunnis to harass. They were hunting gays. "Bring us your son's cell phone," one ordered the middle-aged man who came to the gate. They wanted to check if his son, Nadir, had been calling foreigners--and in fact he had only hours earlier called this reporter to set up a meeting, and he had repeatedly called a gay nongovernmental organization (NGO) in London. Fortunately, Nadir was ready for them and produced a "clean" phone he keeps for just such a threat. This time they left, but vowed to come back if they found any evidence he was gay--or was talking to undesirable foreigners. Now that Iraq's sectarian war has cooled off, it's open season on homosexuals and others whose lifestyles infuriate religious hardliners.

Sometimes the act of reporting a story is revealing in itself--especially when it proves particularly difficult. This was the case when NEWSWEEK began looking into the problems of Iraq's homosexuals after hearing reports of secret safe houses around Baghdad where many of them were taking refuge from the militias' self-appointed morality police. After weeks of inquiries, NEWSWEEK managed to find Nadir and persuade him to arrange a visit to one of the safe houses he helps run. Instead, the Mahdi militia rousted him the night before. Established in 2004, the militia is the armed wing of the organization led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been an implacable foe of the Maliki government. Terrified, Nadir contacted people at the London-based gay NGO that finances the safe house, and they instructed him to break off the visit.

That was only one of many problems reporting on gays in Iraq. Iraqi authorities scoffed at the subject--when not scolding a reporter for even asking about it. Some of NEWSWEEK's own local staff were wary of the story. Virtually no government officials would sit for an interview. And the United Nations human-rights office, which has a big presence in Iraq, dodged the subject like a mine field. As with a number of Muslim societies where homosexuality is officially nonexistent but widely practiced, the policy in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule was "don't ask, don't tell." But that has changed. Iraqi LGBT, the London NGO that Nadir works for, says more than 430 gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2003. For the country's beleaguered gays, it's a friendless landscape.

Many officials say they feel that in a country at war, there are more pressing concerns than gay rights. A Ministry of Justice judge rebuked a reporter for wasting time on such an issue, noting that "crimes of sodomy" are "very rare" in society and even rarer in the courts. "Most acts of homosexual people are being done in dark corners and, with corruption and paying bribes, they will be kept there for a long time, for it is not on the top of our priorities list, which is occupied by issues of terror, kidnapping and killing," said the judge, who would not allow his name to be used discussing gays. An adviser to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that of all the meetings he has attended, none ever touched on the rights--or even the existence--of homosexual Iraqis.

The only recourse for Iraqi gays seems to come from activists abroad. Iraqi LGBT, which was founded to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis, looks after about 40 young men between the ages of 14 and 28 in several Baghdad safe houses. There they are fed, can watch TV, hang out and sleep in cramped quarters, their beds inches apart. They stay away from neighbors and rarely leave their immediate area. "I hope you can see how sensitive and very important the security issue is for the safe houses," said Ali Hili, who fled Iraq and received asylum in Britain.

Hili continues to use a pseudonym to protect himself and insulate relatives still in Iraq. He has not returned home in eight years but does visit Syria and Jordan to raise money and check on an underground railroad that helps spirit some gay men out of Iraq. He says the government tries to monitor the group's activities. Saif, one of the older residents at an Iraqi LGBT house, recalls Saddam's repressive but secular regime wistfully. "Those were the most beautiful days of our lives," he says. "The fall [of Saddam] was the worst thing to happen."

Most people seem to prefer that the subject just go away. A written request for an interview at the Legal Section of the Ministry of Human Rights was greeted with a suggestion to delete the word "gays." A sympathetic senior government official warned that a direct request to talk to a minister about gays could result in a short conversation. "I would ask about women, displaced people, children and others before you get to that," he offered. Officials at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Human Rights ministry maintain that they do not keep statistics about gays, largely because the number is so small, "barely mentioned in Iraq" according to one of them.

Even relatively liberal people in Iraq seem to have harsh attitudes toward this subject. "These people are not welcome in the society because they are against the social, natural and religious rules," said one well-educated Iraqi who did not want to be identified more closely. A Baghdad executive said religion and tradition have made the overwhelming majority of Iraqis hostile to homosexuals. "Nobody is interested in talking about this at all," he says with a grim chuckle. A handful of gay men told NEWSWEEK harrowing stories about being cast out of their homes or savagely attacked by the storm troopers of virtue: Shia extremists among Badr Corps operatives (many of whom are now in the Iraqi Security Forces) or groups like the Mahdi Army, and sometimes both. But when told of such atrocities one Iraqi acquaintance blamed the victims, calling them "the lowest humans."

Persecution of gays will stop only if Iraqis can abandon centuries-old prejudices. They would have to acknowledge that human rights don't cover only the humans they like. Insisting that gays are just a few undesirable perverts who "should be killed"--as one Iraqi who works in journalism put it--encourages an atmosphere of impunity no matter the offense. Killing gays becomes "honorable." And raping them is OK because it isn't considered a homosexual act--only being penetrated or providing oral sex is.

Ali Hili says the government, security forces, judiciary and religious establishment are complicit in terrorizing gays. Since the late-evening visit by the militiamen, Nadir has moved to another part of Baghdad and stayed away from home. "They said, 'We will get you even if you fly to God'," he says. Changing Iraq's attitudes toward its gay minority may prove even harder than ending the war.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/155656

Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder

2008-07-25T08:57:00.004+01:00

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house. But the real terror was about to begin.

The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and they saw that his chest was shaved.

"They told me to take off my clothes to rape me or they would kill me immediately. This moment was the worst moment in my life," he said, weeping as he spoke of the 2005 ordeal.

"I was watching them taking off their clothes, preparing to rape me. I did not know what to do, so I started shouting loudly, 'Please do not do that! I will ask my family to give you whatever you want.'

His pleas went unheeded. "The other two kidnappers took off my clothes by force, and, at that time, I saw them as three dirty animals trying to tear my body apart."

He was held for 15 days, released only after his family paid a $1,500 ransom. He was raped every day. Only once, he said, was he allowed to talk to his family during captivity. "I told my family that I was beaten by them, but I did not dare to tell my family that I was raped by them. I could not say it, it's too much shame."

CNN spoke with Kamal, now 18, and his 21-year-old friend Rami about what it's like to be gay in Iraq. Coming out as gay is not easy in any country, but to do so in Iraq could mean a death sentence or torture.

The two men rarely show feelings toward each other in public. They spend a lot of time in Internet cafes in Baghdad, surfing gay chat rooms and seeking contacts with other gay men in Iraq and elsewhere.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the situation for gays and lesbians in Iraq has deteriorated. Ridiculed under Hussein, many now find themselves the targets of violence, according to humanitarian officials.

Lesbians are also victims of harassment and violence, but not nearly as often as gay men.

It's unknown how many homosexuals have been killed by militias in the lawless streets of Iraq's cities, but some Web sites post pictures of Iraqis they say were killed for being gay.

One photo on the Iraqi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender site shows a group of men standing around three male bodies sprawled on a street, blood pouring from their heads. "Gay Iraqi victims of the police and death squads," the site says.

A U.N. report on human rights in Iraq reinforces the accusations of violence. Although gays are supposed to be protected by law in Iraq, it says, they face extreme brutality.

"Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them," the report said, adding that homosexuals have been murdered.

"Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family," it said.

The report was issued at the end of 2006 and is the last U.N. study to touch on the subject.

Human rights experts say homosexuals are targeted for cultural reasons as well.

"Gay men and lesbians in Iraq face a lot of risks right now, because homosexuality is sometimes interpreted by people in Iraq as being a Western import," said Scott Portman with the Heartland Alliance, a group that promotes human rights worldwide. "So they can sometimes be targeted by insurgent groups or militias, in part, because of animosity toward the West and, in part, because homosexuality is not well-accepted in Iraqi society."

He added, "the biggest threats right now are from militia organizations, who will attack and actually sometimes kill gay men and women."

Kamal and Rami say the dangers are all too real in Baghdad -- and they live in secrecy not to shame their families.

"I would rather commit suicide than allow my family to find out I am gay," Rami said.

Kamal said he often pretends to have girlfriends in social settings and tells his friends he's dating girls. "I am also careful with the way I dress -- not to show them that I am gay, especially my family."

What would his family do if they found out?

"They will force me to give it up, and I cannot do that," he said. "The 'normal' people cannot live in Iraq. Imagine how the life is for gays."

Rami added, "I do not know why people hate gays even though so many have this tendency. But still they hate it."

Homosexuality is a touchy subject for many Iraqis. When CNN asked Iraqis in Baghdad how they felt about homosexuals, we found intolerance to be widespread.

One man said he considers gays no different from "criminals and terrorists." Another claimed that homosexuality was "illegal under Islamic law, and [gays] should be punished by law like criminals."

Rami said he once fell in love with a man who was part of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite insurgent group loyal to the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Their relationship eventually soured.

"One day he told me he would come over to my house and kill me in front of my family," Rami said. "I told him I would come outside and be killed in the street because I do not want my family to find out I am gay."

Both men hope to escape Iraq. They say their ideal destination would be San Francisco, California. For now, both of them keep their feelings secret.

Kamal is still tormented by what happened to him nearly three years ago.

"During my sleep, I only see nightmares, and I start crying. My family thought it was because they were beating me."

He paused. "Only my close friend Rami knows about this secret."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/gay.iraqis/index.html

Also see the Video: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/07/24/pleitgen.iraq.gay.dangers.cnn?iref=videosearch

Stop aid to homophobic countries says Tatchell

2008-07-23T11:33:00.005+01:00

Tatchell picketed in San Diego on Saturday

Speaking to the crowd at the San Diego Pride Human Rights Vigil on Friday 18 July, veteran human rights campaigner Mr Tatchell called for an end to aid for, "viciously homophobic countries like Jamaica, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Iraq and Nigeria."
"Tyrannies should not be rewarded: No US aid for anti-gay regimes," Mr. Tatchell said.
In 2003 the Bush administration pledged $20 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to Forbes magazine.

The reconstruction of Iraq is the largest rebuilding taken on by the US since the Marshall plan helped to rebuild post WW2 Europe.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime sodomy was criminalised in 2001. However, there were no recorded executions or imprisonments.

It is only in recent years that militias have sought and murdered members of the Iraqi LGBT community.

The US also pledged $15 billion to curb the AIDS epidemic in Nigeria.

Homosexuality is a punishable offence under the strict Sharia law that governs the West African country. Gay men can be handed down a sentence of 14 years imprisonment, or 100 lashes for unmarried men and 1 years imprisonment and death by stoning for married men caught in homosexual acts.

In 2004 US aid to Uganda reached $65 million, of that $56 million was donated as emergency food for Ugandans affected by conflict.

The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni recently branded homosexuality a "negative foreign culture."
Since President Museveni's time in office began, Uganda's LGBT community has been subject to violent attacks and harassment. Many have fled the country and are now claiming asylum in Europe.

US aid to Pakistan in 2006 reached $2.8 million and was used to support a national health survey to improve health care in country.

In Pakistan having an alternative sexuality to heterosexuality can lead to life imprisonment, and Gay Nigerians face 14 years in prison.

In Jamaica, a recent survey found anti-gay statements made by the Prime Minister Bruce Golding, had boosted his popularity.

70% of the country do not believe in equal rights for the LGBT community.

After Hurricane Ivan devastated the Caribbean Island of Jamaica in 2005, the year before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the US donated $18 million in aid to help Jamaica recover.

Mr Tatchell also hit out at homophobia within the United States. He called for a boycott of all Hyatt hotels after owner Douglas Manchester for helping to fund proposition 8, the move to ban same sex marriage in California.

The international hotelier has three hotels in the UK, two of which are in London.
Protesters, including Tatchell, picketed the San Diego Hyatt hotel on Saturday. One protester said Hyatt "put so much money into advertising this hotel in gay magazines, and it's a huge slap in the face."

New Video Footage Show the treatment of LGBT People In Iraq by Police.

2008-01-25T02:47:00.000Z

Three Iraq safe houses forced to close

2007-11-06T13:15:00.000Z

No funds to pay rent or utility bills

30 gay people left to fend for themselves

London and Baghdad – 6 November 2007

Three out of five gay safe houses in Iraq are closing down, due to a lack of funds to pay their rent and utility bills.

The refuges were set up two years ago, to provide a place of safety for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (lgbt) Iraqis who have fled homophobic threats and attempts to kill them by religious fundamentalists and death squads.

“Iraqi lgbt has made a huge effort to keep all of its five safe houses running, to provide refuge for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iraqis who have fled homophobic violence and threats to kill them,” said Ali Hili, founder and coordinator of the human rights group, Iraqi lgbt.

“Many of the people we helped have been targeted by the Iraqi police and by Shia militia and other fundamentalist factions.

“Because of a lack of funds, three safe houses have had to close their doors. This decision will break a lot of hearts, but we have no other choice. We don’t have the financial support to sustain these refuges.

“Over 30 gay residents who we cared for in these three safe houses now have to take their chances in a country where religious militia regularly seek out gays and execute them.

“Several months ago, two lesbians working with Iraqi lgbt were assassinated in the safe house they were running in Najaf, along with a young boy the women had rescued from the sex industry.

“We feel deserted by the international gay community. Few people seem to care about our fate.

“Many brave lgbt Iraqis assisted our efforts. We would like to acknowledge their exceptional commitment.

“Sabah, Gada, Sana and Mona are four lesbians who dedicated their time and energy to provide food, cleaning and support to people in the safe houses in their area. We’d also like to thank Hasan , Safa , Jawad, Laith , Gasaq and Rami,” said Mr Hilli.

“The world has let us down so badly,” said Sabah, a 29 year old lesbian, who worked as a carer and ran a safe house in the south of Iraq.

“Nowadays, we don’t dare be seen in the neighbourhoods where we used to live. It is too dangerous for anyone known to be gay or to have had a homosexual past,” said Safa, a gay man in the city of Ammara, where he has been hiding for the last eight months from the police and Shia death squads. Safa fled his hometown of Najaf because he was known to be gay and feared assassination.

“Iraqi lgbt is doing amazing, heroic work,” said Peter Tatchell of the UK-based lgbt organisation, OutRage!

“It’s members inside Iraq are taking huge personal risks to protect the victims of homophobic persecution. Their efforts are truly inspirational. I urge the international lgbt community to rally round and raise the funds needed to sustain the remaining two safe houses. Please give generously,” he urged.

Meanwhile, Iraqi lgbt blames the western invasion and occupation of their country for unleashing religious fanaticism and causing the current homophobic killing spree:

“Much of the world failed to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and to prevent what has turned out to be the worst western intervention catastrophe in modern history,” added Mr Hili.

“The Iraqi gay community feels badly let down in our moment of need.

“Are gay people in the United States, Britain and Australia aware of what their governments have done to our country? Their armies invaded and occupied our land, destroyed the infrastructure of government, and created the chaos and lawlessness that has allowed religious fundamentalism to flourish and to terrorise woman and gay people.”

“Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, which declared that gays and lesbians should be ‘killed in the worst, most severe way possible.’

“Since then, lgbt people have been specifically targeted by the Madhi Army, the militia of fundamentalist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as by the Badr organisation and other Shia death squads. Badr is the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is one of the leading political forces in Baghdad’s western-backed ruling coalition,” said Mr Hili

Can you make a donation to help Iraqi lgbt sustain its magnificent efforts?

The UK-based gay human rights group OutRage! is working with Iraqi LGBT to support its work. Iraqi LGBT is coordinated by Ali Hili from the safety of London UK. The group does not have its own bank account. Operating an Iraqi LGBT bank account in Baghdad would be suicide. For this reason, it has to operate its finances from London. All the group’s members in London are Iraqi refugees seeking asylum. Their lack of proper legal status makes it difficult for them to open a bank account in the UK. This is why Iraqi LGBT is asking that cheques be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT, England, UK. OutRage! then forwards the donations received to Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT for wire transfer to activists in Baghdad.

More information:

Ali Hili 079 819 594 53 (from abroad +44 79 819 594 53)

Blog: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Email: iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk

Photos of some of the LGBT victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.

END.

2 'safe houses' for gays in Iraq set to close for lack of donations

2007-10-18T13:49:00.000+01:00

UK Gay News

LONDON -- Up to 25 gay men will next month have to ‘take their chances’ in Iraq where religious militia regularly seek out gays and execute them. Two ‘safe houses’ for gays will be forced to close at the end month – due to lack of cash, it was learned last night.

And appeal for funds was made last month by the London-based IraqiLGBT group, which runs the five safe houses. The appeal was promoted on a number of LGBT online sires and blogs in several countries.

But just under £1,000 ($US2,000, €1,400) is all has been raised as a result of the appeal. The amount barely covers the cost of running one safe house for a month.

"I have come to a decision on closing down two safe houses because I can not keep promising people things we can not deliver," Ali Hili, who heads IraqiLGBT, told UK Gay News.

The cost of running one safe house for a month is about £900 ($1,800). This includes £400 for rent £200 for the salaries of two guards – an essential part of the security arrangements, and £300 per month for gas, fuel for electricity generators, food, clean drinking water, hygienic supplies etc.

Each house accommodates between 10 to 12 gay men in a relative secure environment.

Since the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq, gay people in Iraq have suffered particularly intense persecution.

Violence against all the gay community has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued a fatwa (religious decree) which declared that gays and lesbians should be “killed in the worst, most severe way”.

For gays in Iraq, a life of constant fear

2007-08-21T14:20:00.000+01:00

Since the U.S.-led invasion, homosexuals have been increasingly targeted by militias and police, human rights groups say.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Times Staff Writer
August , 2007

BAGHDAD — Samir Shaba sits in a restaurant, nervously describing gay life in Iraq. He speaks in a low voice, occasionally glancing over his shoulder.

The heavyset, clean-shaven Christian says that before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, he frequented the city's gay blogs, online chat rooms and dance clubs, where he wore flashy tight clothes, his hair long and loose to his shoulders.

After the invasion, he and other gays and lesbians were driven underground by sectarian violence and religious extremists. Shaba, 25, packed his flashy clothes away, started wearing baseball caps and baggy T-shirts and stopped visiting clubs and chat rooms. But he couldn't bear to cut his hair.

"I cannot change everything immediately," he said, fingering his black ponytail. "I suffered because I didn't cut it."

Recently, Shaba said, police commandos spotted his hair as he was riding in a taxi through a checkpoint in central Baghdad. Suspecting that he was gay, the four commandos dragged him out of the taxi by his hair, and forced him into an armored car. They demanded his cellphone, cash and sex.

When he refused, they beat him with a baton and gang-raped him. He rubbed the back of his shirt, feeling for the scars.

"They got what they wanted because I thought otherwise I would lose my life," Shaba said, and he began to weep. "They threatened me that if I told anyone, they would kill me."

Heightened attacks

Human rights groups say that Iraqi gays are increasingly targeted by militias and police. The United Nations and State Department have issued reports documenting some of the more recent killings.

A U.N. report in January cited attacks on gays by militants, as well as the existence of "religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed."

Iraqi leaders dismiss those allegations, and Middle East experts say it's difficult to tell whether the attacks are state-sanctioned.

"Nobody's paying attention to this issue," said Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. "It is not the custom of the people of Iraq. Not only Iraq, but the whole region."

In October 2005, Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, on his website forbidding homosexuality and declaring that gays and lesbians should be "punished, in fact, killed."

"The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way," the decree said.

The fatwa against gay men was removed from Sistani's website last year, but it was not revoked, said Ali Hili, an Iraqi gay-rights activist living in London who petitioned Sistani's office to remove it.

Hili compiles details of the killings of homosexuals, including photographs of victims, and posts them online. Included in his list of victims are:

• Anwar, 34, a taxi driver who ran a safe house for gays in the southern city of Najaf. Hili said Anwar was shot execution-style after he was stopped at a police checkpoint in March.

• Nouri, 29, a tailor in the southern city of Karbala who had received death threats for being gay and was beheaded in February, Hili said.

• Hazim, 21, of Baghdad also received threats, Hili said, and after police seized him at home in February, his body was found with several gunshots to the head.

Shaba said his cousin Alan, 26, who also was gay, was shot in the head one day when he went to answer the door while the two were having lunch. Although Alan might have been targeted because he was working as an interpreter with U.S. forces in the Green Zone, Shaba said he thought his cousin was killed because he was openly gay.

"There are other translators in our neighborhood, and nobody killed them," he said.

Difficult to discern

Given the pervasiveness of sectarian violence in Iraq, it's hard to tell whether such men are targeted for being gay, said filmmaker Parvez Sharma, a gay Muslim based in New York. Sharma just finished filming a documentary called "A Jihad for Love," set in Iraq and a dozen other Middle Eastern countries. It is to be released this fall.

Sharma's film concentrates on the prosecution of 52 gay men arrested in 2001 aboard a floating nightclub on the Nile; they became known as the "Cairo 52." No similar incident has been documented in Iraq, Sharma said.

"It's very difficult to tell whether there is a pogrom of any sort to kill gay men," he said, but the environment for gays in Iraq has clearly soured.

In the 1980s, Baghdad and Cairo were gay social centers, Sharma said. Many Iraqi gays settled into straight marriages and had families, but many continued to have homosexual relationships on the side.

Although President Saddam Hussein shut down many of Baghdad's gay bars in the 1990s and passed a law against sodomy in 2001, Iraqi gays and lesbians still socialized.

After the 2003 invasion, a man who gave his name as Ahmed still cruised Rubaie Street, a once popular gay thoroughfare in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Zayuna, but he was not openly gay, he said.

A year and a half ago, one of the men he'd met there showed up at his apartment wearing an Iraqi army uniform. He threatened to tell fellow soldiers that Ahmed was gay unless he paid a bribe of 160,000 dinars, about $135.

That was a probable death sentence, he said.

Ahmed paid, fled the country for Amman, Jordan, and considers himself among the lucky ones.

A 31-year-old gay pharmacist in the mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya, said several of his friends were killed for being gay. He is often followed and stopped at checkpoints, he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear that he might be attacked.

He dreams of getting a visa to Sweden, Germany or the Netherlands, which have accepted the bulk of Iraqi refugees, and then applying for asylum because of political persecution.

The United States has recognized asylum claims by gays and lesbians since 1994, but the applications of only about 14% of lesbians and 16% of gay men have been approved, according to the San Francisco-based Asylum Documentation Program of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

In Iraq, the wait for visas is long. Fake travel documents cost at least $15,000 on the black market, out of the pharmacist's price range.

"I'm just looking for salvation," he said. "Maybe next month you will call and my family will say, 'Oh, he is killed.' "

'A cultural issue'

A U.N. spokesman said it was difficult to determine how many gays have been targeted and whether the Iraqi government is trying to help them.

"They have said they are trying to improve human rights for all Iraqis, but they are not even willing to say there are gays in Iraq. This is a cultural issue," U.N. spokesman Said Arikat said.

Wijdan Mikaeil, Iraq's minister of human rights, said her office had not received reports of attacks on gays. She said that gays may be afraid to come forward but that the United Nations is over-emphasizing the problem.

"The Iraqi people have been attacked all across Iraq — not because they are gay, but because of the sectarian issue," she said.

The State Department has urged Iraq to prevent attacks on gays, spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus said, but the insurgency and sectarian violence have made it difficult for the government to protect human rights.

Gabor Rona, international legal director at New York-based Human Rights First, said the chaos shouldn't stop the U.S. government from pressuring Iraqi authorities to hold security forces accountable for abusing gays.

"We may not have any ability to do anything about suicide bombings and insurgent attacks, but we may have the ability to influence the Iraqi government if they have a hand in this," Rona said.

Some U.S. legislators are demanding that the State Department act.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), both openly gay lawmakers, sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June demanding that she investigate attacks on Iraqi gays and pressure Maliki to respond.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has sponsored legislation that would prioritize gay Iraqi refugees in an expanded Iraqi refugee program.

Ahmed, now living in Amman, said U.S. forces in Iraq should investigate reports of assaults on gays and ensure that those responsible are punished.

"At least if they catch one of them, they may be afraid to do it again."

Hate army beat gay students

2007-07-15T09:15:00.000+01:00

BY Claudia Cahalane

Two gay Iraqi students were kidnapped, stripped, beaten and blindfolded at gunpoint, before being handcuffed with wire and forced into a car boot by two members of the Mahdi Army.
The students, known as 23-year-old Ahmed and 24-year-old Zaid, met their kidnappers, who were posing as gay men, in an internet chatroom in May. Upon meeting up in real life for a “date”, the captors drove their victims to a deserted area and attacked them.

The “army” men demanded to know the names and phone numbers of other gay men and went through the details of everyone listed in their mobile phones.

The students were expecting to be executed, but were left in the secluded area by their attackers and later rescued by a passing motorist.

Ahmed and Zaid have been helped by gay rights group Iraqi LGBT and local lesbian Dina H, who runs a safe house for gays and lesbians. They have now vowed to hide their sexuality to protect themselves.

The kidnappers were part of the violently homophobic Mahdi Army – a militia of firebrand fundamentalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is fighting to establish an Islamist dictatorship in Iraq, said Peter Tatchell of UK-based gay rights group Outrage.

The Mahdi Army has been involved in the torture and execution of gays, women and anyone else who does not conform to, its “harsh, perverse interpretation of Islam,” added Tatchell.

Ali Hili, a gay Iraqi refugee, who coordinates Iraqi LGBT from London, said that police in Iraq had been infiltrated by Shia extremists using the cover of the police to kill gays and lesbians.

He added: “Iraqi LGBT needs donations to help gay people who are fleeing the death squads off the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades.”

YOU CAN SAVE LIVES, YOU CAN MAKE A CHANGE.

2007-06-26T12:55:00.000+01:00

Two Members of US Congress Protest Persecution of Gay Iraqis

2007-06-15T09:07:00.000+01:00

Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank

Condoleezza Rice Asked to Intervene

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2007

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressman Barney Frank (D- MA) have written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the State Department to investigate reports of violent persecution of homosexual Iraqis by Islamic groups and militias.

The two lawmakers cited a United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's (UNAMI) Human Rights Report issued for the period of November 1 to December 31, 2006, which stated that an environment of “impunity and lawlessness” currently permeating Iraq has invited open and violent campaigns against LGBT Iraqis.

“In 2005, the Iraqi people adopted a Constitution guaranteeing that ‘every individual has the right to enjoy life, security and liberty’.

“Unfortunately, such promises have been particularly eroded for LGBT Iraqis, who must live in constant fear of being targeted for execution.

“We therefore urge you to raise this serious issue with the Iraqi leadership and press them to take immediate action to halt the killings of Iraqi homosexuals,” Baldwin and Frank wrote.

Representatives Baldwin and Frank asked Secretary Rice to raise the issue and express her concerns to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, while urging the Iraqi government to step up its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis and stop these senseless attacks by the militias.

Full text of the letter:

Dear Secretary Rice:

We are writing to express our strong concerns regarding recent reports that Iraqi homosexuals have been systematically persecuted in Iraq under a violent campaign led by Islamic groups and militias. We urge the State Department to investigate such allegations and report its findings as part of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. We also urge you to raise the issue and express your concerns to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, while urging the Iraqi government to step up its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis and stop these senseless attacks by the militias.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's (UNAMI) Human Rights Report issued for the period of November 1 to December 31, 2006, an environment of "impunity and lawlessness" currently permeating Iraq has invited open and violent campaigns against LGBT Iraqis. According to news reports, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the chief spiritual leader of Iraqi Shia Muslims, issued a "'fatwa,' or religiously-inspired legal pronouncement, in October 2005 calling for death for all gays and lesbians in "the most severe way possible." While the fatwa was eventually removed from Sistani's website last May, it was never revoked, and the decree has led to the deployment of anti-gay death squads by the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Badr Corps. As a result, violence against gay Iraqis surged in 2006.

According to Iraqi LGBT, a London-based human rights group working to support the human rights of gay Iraqis, twenty-six of its members have been killed since 2003, including the murder of two minors - eleven-year-old Ameer and fourteen-year-old Ahmed who were forced into child prostitution--in 2006. In addition, a mass kidnapping of five gay men from the Shaab area of Iraq took place during the first week of December 2006. All are now presumed dead.

In April of this year, Iraqi LGBT documented that eight additional murders took place in 2007, while several other gay activists were arrested and tortured. A report by the Institute for War and Peace (IWPR) also documented that religious courts now exists in Iraq allegedly to try homosexuals, sentencing them to death, and subsequently executing them under the supervision of clerics.

The aforementioned news accounts, coupled with UNAMI and IWPR's reports, present a substantial body of evidence that LGBT Iraqis have been systematically targeted for violence by Islamic clerics and militias. Yet the 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the State Department this March, made no reference to any human rights violations in Iraq based on sexual orientation. We thus urge the State Department to investigate such allegations and incorporate the findings in the annual human rights report.

Furthermore, we urge you to utilize every diplomatic tool available to engage Prime Minister Al-Maliki and President Talabani and call on the Iraqi government to crack down on the systematic prosecution of Iraqi homosexuals. In 2005, the Iraqi people adopted a Constitution guaranteeing that "every individual has the right to enjoy life, security and liberty," (emphasis added). Unfortunately, such promises have been particularly eroded for LGBT Iraqis, who must live in constant fear of being targeted for execution. We therefore urge you to raise this serious issue with the Iraqi leadership and press them to take immediate action to halt the killings of Iraqi homosexuals.

Sincerely,
Tammy BaldwinMember of Congress
Barney FrankMember of Congress

Gay genocide in Iraq

2007-05-30T10:22:00.000+01:00

May-2007

Murdered and set ablaze April 2006, Karar Oda is just one of the many Iraqis dragged from their homes by hooded militia and shot, set on fire or beheaded because they were believed to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The grisly image is all that was left of Oda, a farmer who was seized and killed by Badr brigades – militia of the The Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) (Arabic: المجلس الأعلى الإسلامي العراقي) (previously known as Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)) – because they suspected him of having an affair with another man.

These men, also believed to be gay, were gunned down a few weeks before Oda’s death in the Iraqi city of Ramadi by Shi’a fundamentalist death squads. The victims appear to be under 18. One looks as young as 14 or 15.

This week’s cover story, “Democracy’s Deaf Ear,” by Patrick Sherman, reports how Iraqi death squads and militias control large portions of Iraq and target people for what they view as “crimes against Islam.” Punishable offenses have included wearing shorts or jeans, consuming alcohol, agreeing to shave a man’s beard, dancing, listening to Western pop music, eating or serving a “sexually immoral salad,” and for women, going out in public unveiled.

Practicing homosexuality is also viewed as a crime against Islam, and potentially hundreds either caught or suspected of same-sex relations have paid with their lives.

What’s surprising is that these killings began after the U.S. and British-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, not under the Saddam regime. According to Ali Hili, founder of the London-based human rights organization Iraq LGBT, whom the Gay & Lesbian Times interviewed at length, homosexuality during Saddam’s rule didn’t garner the sort of violence being witnessed today.

“At that time, there were the sanctions and the economic crisis in Iraq. There was so much more to worry about [than] homosexuals,” he said.

Ibrahim Ebeid, co-editor of the blog al-maharer.net, who lived in Iraq for four years during the 1970s, said, “I never heard of any gay arrested or of any who was killed. The killing started after the invasion of Iraq. It’s really very sad now. If you hate someone, you just have to say, ‘He is gay,’ [whether] he is or not. They go in front of his family and they shoot them there right on the spot.”

The U.S. government is ignoring these atrocities. Perhaps they are drowned out by the volume of killings that occur almost every day in war-torn Iraq.

Openly gay Congressmember Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he was unaware of the sexual cleansing taking place before Sherman contacted him. Of all those Sherman contacted for the story, however, Frank was the only congressmember to take action, committing to write a letter to the secretaries of state and defense requesting government pressure be put on Iraq regarding the situation. He also said he would contact others in Congress to sign the letter.

How many other elected officials, with a majority voting in favor of this war, are unaware of its many consequences, we wonder?

What was sold to the American public as a mission to bring democracy to the Middle East has instead bred Islamic extremism. This gay genocide happening right under the nose of the U.S. military only adds to the long list of complete and utter failures by the Bush administration in a war billed to make the world safe from terror.

Contact your Mp’s & congressmember and help make this a international issue. to find out how you can assist Hili in saving the lives of GLBT people in Iraq.

http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=9774&issue=1012

IRAQ - MORE GAY EXECUTIONS

2007-04-03T11:43:00.000+01:00

Baghdad refuses to protect gays and denounces UN report

London – 3 April 2007

“Iraqi lesbians and gays continue to be subjected a systematic reign
of terror by Shia death squads. The government of Iraq refuses to
crack down on the killers or to take any action to protect its gay
citizens. It is a regime that is dominated by Shia fanatics and
homophobes,” according to Ali Hili, the coordinator of the human
rights group Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

Mr Hili lists below a few examples of the many death squad killings of
gay Iraqis.

“Supporters of the fundamentalist Sadr and Badr militias boast that
they are cleansing Iraq of what they call ‘sexual perverts’. They are
open about terrorising gay Iraqis to make them flee the country and
murdering those who fail to leave. Their goal is a queer-free,
pro-homophobic Iraq. They are dragging our country back to the dark
ages,” said the London-based Mr Hili, who is also Middle East
spokesperson for the gay human rights group, OutRage!

“Some members of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government are
linked to the anti-gay death squads. They are the political
representatives of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement and the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Both these parties
have militias, respectively the Mahdi army and the Badr brigades, who
are responsible for the execution-style killing of lesbian and gay
Iraqis – and the murder of many other Iraqis, including Sunni Muslims,
trade unionists, unveiled women, journalists and men wearing shorts,
jeans or western-style haircuts.

“The murder of gay Iraqis has the support of highly influential
religious leaders, such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a
fatwa in late 2005, calling for the execution of gay people in the
‘most severe way possible’. After international protests, he removed
the fatwa from his website, but the fatwa itself has not been
rescinded. It remains in force and is the spiritual sanction for the
death squads to murder gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,”
said Mr Hili.

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) has corroborated
Iraqi LGBT’s claims of “sexual cleansing” by the death squads and
Islamist courts:

"Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly
hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent
campaigns against them," January’s UNAMI report said.

"There have been a number of assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq…At
least five homosexual males were reported to have been kidnapped from
Shaab area in the first week of November (2006) by one of the main
militias. The mutilated body of Amjad, one of the kidnapped, appeared
in the same area after a few days. [We were] also alerted to the
existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where
homosexuals allegedly
would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed," UNAMI
said.

This UNAMI report provoked a hostile reaction from the government of
Iraq, which suggested that gay people are unIraqi and unIslamic:

“There was information in the report that we cannot accept here in
Iraq. The report, for example, spoke about the phenomenon of
homosexuality and giving them their rights," said Mr al-Dabbagh, a
spokesperson for the Iraqi government. "Such statements are not
suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected. They (the UN) should
respect the values and traditions here in Iraq.”

Iraq’s many LGBT victims of the death squads

Here are details of a few of the LGBTs who have been murdered in Iraq
in recent months:

“Anwar, aged 34, a taxi driver, was a member of Iraqi LGBT and helped
run one of the group’s safe houses in the city of Najaf. He
disappeared in January 2007. He was arrested in his taxi after being
stopped at a police and militia checkpoint. His body was found in
March 2007. He had been subjected to an execution-style killing.

“Nouri, aged 29, a tailor, was kidnapped in the city of Karbala in
February 2007. He had received many death threats by letter and phone
in the past, accusing him of leading a gay life. He was found dead a
few days later, with his body mutilated and his head severed.

“Hazim, a 21-year-old man, was taken by police officers from his house
in Baghdad in February 2007. He was well-known to be gay. After
threats because of his homosexuality, his family was forced to leave
their home. Hazim’s body was subsequently found with several shots to
the head.

“Sayf, a gay 25-year-old, worked for the Iraqi police as a translator.
He was kidnapped in the Al-Adhamya suburb by black masked men in
Ministry of Interior security force uniforms who drove a marked police
car. Almost certainly they were members of the Badr militia which has
infiltrated the Interior Ministry and police. Sayf’s body was found
several days later, with his head cut off.

“Khaldon, a 45 year old gay man lived in al-Hurriya, a mainly Shia
neighborhood of Baghdad. He worked as a chef. The Sadr militia, the
Mahdi army, kidnapped him in November 2006. His decaying corpse was
found in February 2007.

“Khalid, a 19 year old gay man, a college student who lived in
al-Kadomya, was kidnapped in December 2006. Three months later, his
family was handed his tortured and burned remains.

“Hasan Sabeh, a 34 year old transvestite - also known as Tamara -
worked in the fashion industry designing women’s clothes. He lived in
the al-Mansor district of Baghdad. Hasan was seized in the street by
an Islamist death squad and hanged in public on the holy Shia
religious day, 11 January 2007. His body was mutilated and cut to
pieces. When his brother-in-law tried to defend him, he was also
murdered.

“Four gay friends had been receiving threatening letters at their
Baghdad houses. All four were arrested on 26 December 2006 by militia
at a roadside checkpoint. They were interrogated about whether they
were Sunnis. Their identity cards showed that three of the men were
Shia. These three men were released after several hours of
interrogation. The fourth man, Samer, a 26 year old a Sunni who lived
in Zayona, was later found with gunshot wounds to his head, his eyes
blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back. His body showed marks
of torture and many burns. It is not clear whether Samer was executed
because he was Sunni or gay or both.

“Alan Thomas, was a 23 year old, Christian gay Iraqi who lived in
al-Gadeer, a Shia majority district of Baghdad. He received many
threats for being gay and was eventually kidnapped and executed by
Shia death squads in late 2006. His older sister spoke to me over the
phone from Baghdad; explaining how the murder of her only brother
caused the death of their sick elderly mother. She told me: ‘The new
Iraqi evil regime does not provide effective protection to the
population of Iraq. Shia militias act in collusion with security
force gangs to take revenge on the Sunni’s and other minorities.’

“Occasionally, some victims of the fundamentalists have been able to
buy their survival. Hamid A, a 44 year old bisexual man, from the
Al-Talibya district. He was kidnapped twice by the Sadr militia. The
first instance was in April 2006 when he, his nephew and his brother
were kidnapped and tortured. He was released in May 2006 after his
tribe members paid a huge ransom to save his life and the lives of his
relatives. Hamid was kidnapped for a second time in November 2006 by
the same Sadr militia, when an informant reported that he was drinking
alcohol and that he was suspected of being gay. He was held in a big
office in Sadr city, along with other detainees - most of them Sunnis
and Christians. Again, he was ransomed and is now in hiding; a rare
survivor of the Sadr militia interrogation centres.

“Heterosexual friends of gays are also executed. This happened to
Majid Sahi, aged 28, a civil engineer. He had been helping Iraqi LGBT
members in Baghdad. Abducted by the Badr militia from his home, they
objected to his association with gay Iraqis. His family was advised by
the Badr forces that their son’s “immoral behavior” was the reason for
his kidnapping. His body was found in Baghdad, with bullet wounds in
the back of his head, on 23 February 2007.

Photos of some of these victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.

“Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a
clandestine network of lesbian and gay activists inside Iraq’s major
cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra,” reports
Peter Tatchell of OutRage!, who is working closely with Ali Hili and
Iraqi LGBT.

“These heroic activists are helping gay people on the run from
fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad,
and helping them escape to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon,” said Mr
Tatchell.

Ali Hili is making an appeal for donations to fund the work of Iraqi
LGBT:

“Iraqi LGBT needs donations to help gay people in Iraq who are fleeing
the death squads. We need money for safe houses, food, electricity,
security protection and clothing - and to help pay the phone bills of
members of the Iraqi LGBT group. They are sending us information about
the homophobic killings, at great risk to their own lives.

“Many of the people we are helping had nothing but the clothes on
their backs, when they fled the attacks by fundamentalist militias.

“We are also paying for medication for members who are HIV positive.
Otherwise, they will not get treatment. If it is discovered that they
have HIV, they will surely be killed,” said Mr Hili.

The UK-based gay rights group OutRage! is working with Iraqi LGBT to
support its work. Iraqi LGBT is coordinated by Ali Hili from the
safety of London UK. The group does not yet have a bank account.
Operating an Iraqi LGBT bank account in Baghdad would be suicide. For
this reason, it has to operate its finances from London. All the
group’s members in London are Iraqi refugees seeking asylum. Their
lack of proper legal status makes it difficult for them to open a bank
account in the UK. This is why Iraqi LGBT is asking that cheques be
made payable to:

“OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to
OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT, England, UK. OutRage! then
forwards the donations received to Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT for wire
transfer to Baghdad.

More information:

Ali Hili 079 819 594 53

Blog: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Photos of some of the LGBT victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.

For photos of other victims, see:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72057594087304767/

Peter Tatchell, OutRage! 020 7403 1790

END.

Iraqi Policemen go on killing spree

2007-03-28T12:43:00.000+01:00

28 March 2007

Iraqi Police and Shiite militias rampaged through a Sunni district on a revenge spree against Sunni resident in the north-western Iraqi town of Tal Afar overnight, killing more than 60 people in apparent reprisal for bombings in a Shi'ite area, Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.
The attack was on the Sunni district of al-Wahda in Tal Afar, where tensions have been rising between residents, who are a mixture of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen.

The gunmen began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused of being involved after they were identified by the Sunni families targeted. But he said the attackers included Shiite militiamen.

He said more than 60 Sunnis had been killed, but a senior hospital official in Tal Afar put the death toll at 45, with four wounded.

The hospital official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said the victims were men between the ages of 15 and 60, and they were killed with a shot to the back of the head.

Police said earlier dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures, and communications problems made it difficult to reach them for an update. The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

Tal Afar, located 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, is in the province of Ninevah, of which Mosul is the capital. It is a mainly Turkomen city with some 60 percent of its residents adhering to Shiite Islam and the rest mostly Sunnis.

The violence came a day after two truck bombs shattered markets in the city, killing at least 63 people and wounding dozens in the second assault in four days. After Tuesday's bombings, suspected Sunni insurgents tried to ambush ambulances carrying the injured out of the northwestern city but were driven off by police gunfire, Iraqi authorities said.

The carnage was the worst bloodshed in a surge of violence across Iraq as militants on both sides of the sectarian divide apparently have fled to other parts of the country to avoid a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown, raising tensions outside the capital.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Iraqis detained in the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad are being held in two detention centers designed to hold at most a few dozen people, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing an Iraqi monitoring group.

The report said 705 people were packed into an area built for 75 at one of the detention centers, in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. The other center, on Muthana Air Base, held 272 people, including two women and four boys, in a space designed to hold about 50.

Officials from the monitoring group said they did not know the sectarian composition of the detainee populations.

END