Murder Campaign Driving Gay Men Out Of Iraq

October 09, 2009

Although it is not common knowledge to the average reader, Iraq is, and has been for a very long time, an extremely homophobic society.  Gay men who live there with their sexual orientation do so at great risk, and are in near constant fear of being tortured or murdered because of their sexual preference.

Historically, the idea of making or allowing their same-sex preference to be publicly known has typically been out of the question, and still is.  But in the past year or so, things have gotten much worse for outing gay men in Iraq, regardless of whether the disclosure was of their own doing or otherwise.  There has been a marked increase in media condemnation of gays, in which conservative Iraqis commonly refer to gay men as the third sex, and they are now being routinely condemned in mosques.  The growing problem, however, goes far beyond mere condemnation for what many homophobes there call unnatural sexual intercourse.  An unparalleled campaign of organized murder seems to have taken hold there, and is not showing any signs of diminishing according to a recent report put out by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Although murders of gay men have occurred in Iraq in the past, now they are being gunned down in the streets by a variety of militia, mercenaries, or other armed soldier types, and videos are being made of the murders which are then circulated widely throughout the country via mobile phones and other methods.  In the past, such murders did not include the making of videos, and people typically did not talk about them.  Now, the murderous campaign is intended to literally put the fear of death into gay men, and it has been very successful in that regard.

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Making matters even worse, the murders are not limited to shooting people in the streets.  They are often carried out in a much more horrific fashion, including the insertion of super glue or other glue-like material into the anus, after which the victim is forced to take large doses of laxatives but is unable to defecate due to the glue.  The result is, of course, a slow, torturous death that is, needless to say, painful in the extreme and completely inhumane.  According to the HRW report, the campaign seems to be led by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, but other groups, such as al-Qaeda and Ahl al Haq, also known as People of Truth, are also participating in the gruesome activities, and little is being done to stop the attacks.

Fearing for their lives, gay men have been leaving Iraq in throngs, heading to Lebanon where homosexuality still is not legal but is more readily tolerated.  Most of those who make it to Lebanon do so as illegal aliens, without papers, and run the risk of facing charges of not only being there illegally but also of being homosexual.  A gay advocacy group there, known as Helem, offers gay refugees limited financial help, as well as medical care, and helps register them with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to help the expatriates find a country that will take them in.  Many of them have ended up in Canada and Norway, which have been more open about taking them in than many countries, and the U.N. group helps expedite the process of relocation—instead of the normal process that can four years or more, the group is getting people processed in approximately one year.

In the meantime, the murders and the fear continues....

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi  

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Comments

[Scott Piro]

A new refugee advocacy organization with a focus on LGBTs launched in June: ORAM – Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration ORAM’s mission is to advocate for refugees fleeing sexual or gender based violence.

Among our projects, ORAM is currently providing legal representation to LGBT refugees in Turkey in RSD (refugee status determination) proceedings before the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR). Our caseload contains all known LGBT refugees and asylum-seekers in Turkey. (The vast majority of these are Iranians fleeing imminent execution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.) In July we published the first-ever report to expose the dire conditions these LGBT refugees face, which can be downloaded on our site. Our report was sourced in October by the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights.

Details of our work and mission appear on our website. Whether your concern is LGBT rights, refugee rights or both, we invite you to learn more about us by visiting us online.

Regards,

Scott Piro
Communications Consultant

on behalf of
ORAM - Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration
Tel: +1 415 373-5299|Fax: + 1 415 373 9191