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Iraqi Gay Murders Surge; World Finally Takes Note
The mainstream media has finally begun to pick up on a human rights atrocity occuring in Iraq against LGBT Iraqis and those perceived to be. A campaign with strong ties to the government, and facilitated by a homophobic media has been underway since 2005 and seems to be getting worse. In 2005, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that LGBT citizens should be "killed in the worst, most severe way of killing".
Since then, Iraqi LGBT (Iraq's only LGBT organization) has documented over 600 murders, many of which are sanctioned by the government. Safe houses have been set up but many fear to gather in one place, according to Ali Hilli, the director. 63 of those murders have occured since December and the mainstream international media (BBC, Times, Reuters, CNN) is reporting on the story in the last few months as the death toll rises.
According to gaycitynews.com:
Unfortunately, the Times article omitted any mention of the anti-gay death squads of the Badr Corps, the military arm of the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which in 2007 changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq when it entered the coalition government as its largest Islamist party, and which acknowledges Sistani as its supreme leader and spiritual guide. The estimated 11,000 members of the Badr Corps militia, which has been responsible for a large majority of the murders of gays since Sistani's fatwa calling for such killings, was integrated into the Ministry of the Interior in 2006, and since then its Badr anti-gay death squads have operated in police uniforms with complete impunity
and this....
Dalia Hashad of Amnesty International told Gay City News, "Amnesty has been unable to get from the Iraqi government any confirmation that the men are in custody or that they are facing execution, but from what we have heard from individuals in Iraq, they were sentenced to die for belonging to a 'banned group.' We are protesting to the Iraqi government and are continuing to try to investigate, but it is very difficult to get any information about such prisoners in Iraq." Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch's LGBT desk, told Rex Wockner's gay news service, "Together with other groups, members of Congress and concerned activists, we're doing everything we can to investigate and determine who's jailed and what their fates may be. The Iraqi government and the US government must both investigate these charges immediately." Long is traveling to Iraq to pursue an HRW investigation.
Is anyone in Canada organizing on this issue? If so, please send us a tip (tip@qlinks.ca) and let us know! If you want to get involved, one way is to donate directly to IraqiLGBT's paypal account from their website.The other is to spread the news.....we need to start talking about this with our friends and family --- and our elected representatives.
Posted on
Sat, April 18, 2009
by B.J. Caldwell
filed under