The
Lives And Deaths Of Iraqi Gays
By Peter Tatchell
27 November, 2006
Uruknet
Another
five gay men were abducted at gun-point by Iraqi police in Baghdad on
9 November. Nothing has been heard of them since then. It is feared
that they may have been murdered.
These disappearances are
the latest "sexual cleansing" operation mounted by Islamist
death squads who have infiltrated the police. They are systematically
targeting gays and lesbians for extra-judicial execution, as part of
their so-called moral purification campaign.
The kidnapped men are Amjad
27, Rafid 29, Hassan 24, Ayman 19 and Ali 21. All were members of Iraq's
clandestine gay rights movement, Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender). For the last few months, they had been documenting
the killing of lesbians and gays, relaying details of the barbaric homophobic
murders to the outside world and providing safe houses and support to
queers fleeing the death squads.
At the time of the police
raid, the five men were holding a secret meeting in a safe house in
the al-Shaab district of Baghdad. They were communicating with the founder
and head of Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hili, who operates from London, UK. "Suddenly
there was a lot of noise, then the connection ended," recalls Mr.
Hili.
Earlier, in June this year,
lslamist death squads burst into the home of two lesbians in city of
Najaf. They shot them dead, slashed their throats, and also murdered
a young child the lesbians 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 now fled to Baghdad and are hiding
in an Iraqi LGBT safe house in the suburbs.
These latest horrific homophobic
kidnappings and murders are a snapshot of the rapidly growing power
and menace of Iraq's death squads, many of which belong to militias
that are hell-bent on turning the country into a fundamentalist Islamic
state. Some operate within the police and others independently. All
owe their allegiance to firebrand, militant clerics.
Large parts of Iraq, including
many Baghdad neighborhoods, are now under the de facto control of these
fundamentalist 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 Blair-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 government
coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious
dictatorship -- or worse.
Some of the anti-war left
in Britain and the US support Muqtada al-Sadr, despite his goal of clerical
fascism and his militia's involvement in death squad killings. They
hail him as a national resistance hero for fighting the US and UK occupation
of Iraq; totally ignoring his militia's sectarian murder of innocent
Sunni Muslims, women and gay people. The allied occupation of Iraq is
bad enough. But victory for the Madhi or Badr militias would result
in a reign of religious terror many times worse.
The execution of lesbian
and gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads and militias is symptomatic
of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue
to gain influence. The summary killing of queers is the 'canary in the
coal mine' -- a warning of the barbarism to come.
Saddam Hussein was a bloody
tyrant. This writer knows. For nearly 30 years, I campaigned in support
of democratic and left wing Iraqis who were struggling to overthrow
his regime. At least while Saddam was in power, discrete homosexuality
was usually tolerated. There was certainly no danger of gay people being
assassinated in the street by religious fanatics. Since his overthrow,
however, the violent persecution of lesbians and gays is commonplace.
It is actively encouraged by Iraq's leading Muslim cleric, the British
and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In late 2005, he issued
a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist
militias are now systematically assassinating lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender people, as indicated by the following sample reports
received from my clandestine Iraqi LGBT activist contacts inside Iraq:
"Wissam Auda was a member
of Iraq's Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play in the Wimbledon
championship in London this year. He had been receiving death threats
from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May,
his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya
district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid
and team mate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street.
Their crime? Wissam's homosexuality was probably what drew him to the
attention of the militias, but his official crime was -- wearing shorts.
An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the
ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses."
"The father of 23 year
old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his
son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses
to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill
the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor.
Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia
murdered two of his family members in retribution."
"Nyaz is a 28-year old
dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship
will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed.
They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters
worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry
an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr.
If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and
her family will be targeted for 'honor killing' by Sadr's men."
Lesbian and gay Iraqis cannot
seek the protection of the police. Iraq's security forces have been
infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have
huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill
at will and with impunity. Pro-fundamentalist government ministers are
turning a blind eye to the killings, and helping to protect the killers.
Fourteen year old Ahmed Khalil
was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men.
According to his Baghdad neighbor, in April four men in police uniforms
arrived at Ahmed's house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck.
They wore the distinctive face masks of the Badr militia. The neighbor
saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank
range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into
the rest of his body.
In the chaos and lawlessness
of post-war Iraq, hundreds of young boys are being blackmailed into
the sex industry. The sex-ring operators lure the boys into having gay
sex, photograph them, and then threaten to publish their photos unless
they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness was publicly revealed,
the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.
Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect,
was kidnapped in Baghdad in March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia
sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son
to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents
paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq's life. But he was found
dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.
The UK-based LGBT rights
group OutRage! is working to support its counterpart organization in
Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has
established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq's major
cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous
activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death
squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape
to Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its
peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.
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