Gay genocide in Iraq

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

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 to the right (top) is all
that was left of Oda, a farmer who was seized and killed by Badr
brigades – militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq – because they suspected him of having an affair with another
man.

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.
“We used to have sex on the Tigris River,” Hili said. “We’d drink
together, a group of guys, everyone with his boyfriends….

“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 congressmember and help make this a national issue. Also,
visit Iraq LGBT at http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com to find out how you
can assist Hili in saving the lives of GLBT people in Iraq.
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