Tuesday September 22, 2009, 1:02 am
The Guardian article posted:

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

"It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.

Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.

The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed."

The violence against Iraqi gays is a key test of the government's ability to protect vulnerable minority groups after the Americans have gone.

Dr Toby Dodge, of London University's Queen Mary College, believes that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nouri al-Maliki. "Militia groups whose raison d'être was security in their communities are seeing that function now fulfilled by the police. So their focus has shifted to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries," Dodge said.

Homosexuality was not criminalised under Saddam Hussein – indeed Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its relatively liberated gay scene. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a London-based human-rights group, a total of 680 have died in Iraq, with at least 70 of those in the past five months. The group believes the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women. According to Hali, Iraq has become "the worst place for homosexuals on Earth".

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."

She went with police to find her son's remains. "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals," she said. "I will carry this image with me until my dying day."

Police officers interviewed by the Observer said the killings were not aimed at gays but were isolated remnants of the sectarian violence that racked the country between 2005 and 2006. Hamizi's group, however, boasts that two people a day are chosen to be "investigated" in Baghdad. The group claims that local tribes are involved in homophobic attacks, choosing members to hunt down the victims. In some areas, a list of names is posted at restaurants and food shops.

The roommate of Haydar, 26, was kidnapped and killed three months ago in Baghdad. After Haydar contacted the last person his friend had been chatting with on the net, he found a letter on his front door alerting him "about the dangers of behaving against Islamic rules". Haydar plans to flee to Amman, the Jordanian capital. "I have… to run away before I suffer the same fate," he said.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Shia militia known as the Mahdi army may be among the militants implicated in the violence, particularly in the northern part of Baghdad known as Sadr City. There are reports that Mahdi army militias are harassing young men simply for wearing "western fashions".

A Ministry of Interior spokesperson, Abdul-Karim Khalaf, denied allegations of police collaboration. "The Iraqi police exists to protect all Iraqis, whatever their sexual persuasion," he said.

Hashim, another victim of violence by extremists, was attacked on Abu Nawas Street. Famous for its restaurants and bars, the street has become a symbol of the relative progress made in Baghdad. But it was where Hashim was set on by four men, had a finger cut off and was badly beaten. His assailants left a note warning that he had one month to marry and have "a traditional life" or die.

"Since that day I have not left my home. I'm too scared and don't have money to run away," Hashim said.

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 1:07 am
Stop the deportation of Anwar Basim Saleh

Source: EveryOne Group
(translated by EveryOne Group from the original French (scroll down, French original is at the end) )


Anwar Basim Saleh, the 21-year old Iraqi gay activist from Baghdad, is at present in Holland, where he has applied for asylum.

Anwar, before leaving his country of origin, was the coordinator of a “safe house” for homosexuals working alongside the Iraqi LGBT organization. He was arrested in February 2009 by members of the Iraqi Interior Ministry (Badr Corps) for his role in the association. He was badly beaten up, tortured and he suffered a serious trauma after the long period of detention and the abuse he was subjected to.

He was put under investigation and interrogated over and over again about his role as an LGBT activist and his involvement in the running of a “safe house” in Iraq, where persecuted homosexuals are secretly taken in and offered assistance.

During his detention he met five other members of this organization who have been sentenced to death for the same reason. During a visit to the jail of an Iraqi LGBT volunteer, Anwar handed over a letter with a desperate appeal: “save me from the death penalty.

Iraqi LGBT immediately paid the authorities 5,000 dollars in bail to obtain the young man’s release. As soon as he was released from jail on April 14th, 2009, Anwar immediately got on a plane to Paris, thus fleeing his homeland where he would have undergone an unjust trial, and would most likely have been sentenced to death.

After a few months without any help from the French institutions, associations and authorities (while begging on the streets and living as a tramp), Anwar (who speaks no other languages but his own) left France, and on June 22nd entered Dutch territory. He approached the police authorities in Rotterdam of his own accord, and after telling them his story, they sent him to the local refugee office, which gave him shelter at Terabil asylum centre on June 24th.

On September 2nd, 2009, Anwar was sent for by the Justice Ministry to discuss his asylum application, and was informed that according to the Dublin Regulation, it is up to France to decide whether or not to grant him refugee status.

Anwar, who is still in Holland, begged them to reconsider his application in Holland (where other homosexual originating from Arab countries have taken refuge) to avoid having to make yet another traumatic move and long wait before he learns his fate.

In the Iraqi capital, in an interview given to the newspaper “The National” a militiaman declared: “we see homosexuality as a serious disease that is spreading rapidly among the young men in the community, after it has been brought here by American soldiers. These are not Iraqi habits or habits of our community, and we have to wipe them out”.

Over the last few months it is believed that dozens and dozens of gay homosexuals have been brutally murdered because of their homosexuality in an effort to eliminate those who are considered “morally deviant”.

However, this kind of crime has been taking place since 2003. Officially, the Iraqi police state that the number of murders over the last two months is less than ten, though unofficially they acknowledge that the figure is at least double that. Some of the victims were murdered by their own families or tribes, who see homosexuality as a serious stain on their own honour.

The Iraqi militiaman, in the same interview states: “we have the approval of the most important Iraqi tribes to get rid of the men who imitate women”, explaining that he was once in the Mahdi Army, but now acts independently of the militia of the disbanded leader of the Moqtada-al-Sadr movement: “Our aim is to contribute to the stabilization of society”.

Homosexuality is illegal in Iraqi and, after instructions posted in 2005 on the website of the Shiite religious leader Ali al Sistani, it is to be considered a crime punishable with the death sentence - and homosexuals are to be killed in the “worst” way possible. Though this page was later removed, the sentiments it expressed appear to be shared by other Iraqi religious leaders.

“The Islamic punishment for gay people is to be burnt to death or subjected to any other form of capital punishment”, said imam Hussein from the mosque in the Karada district of Baghdad. “Those who break God’s laws must be purified by the Muslim community. There are clear rules for humanity: men must be men and women must be women”. The religious leader states that the Iraqi government should intervene with determination against homosexuals, but if it fails to, it is more than acceptable for families and tribes to kill them. “The truth is that homosexuality is a source of shame for them. By killing homosexuals, they are doing God’s will”.

Taher Mustafa, a member of the medical staff in Baghdad, has recently stated that over the last three months he himself has seen three men he believe were killed because of their homosexuality. He also added: “three men, between the ages of 17 – 25, who were either killed or burnt to death”.

In September 2009, an article in the British Sunday magazine ‘The Observer’, revealed that the Iraqi Islamic extremists who hunt out homosexuals have started monitoring chat rooms and websites, and since the beginning of the year they have murdered more than 130 gay men. The journalist from The Observer met the leader of one of these fundamentalist organizations in Baghdad. A 22-year-old computer expert, he spends at least six hours every day hunting out homosexuals over the Internet: “It is the most simple way to find these people who are destroying Islam and who aim to soil a reputation we have taken years to build”.

After the international alarm sounded months ago by Iraqi LGBT and EveryOne Group (and after an attempt by the EveryOne activists Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro, Dario Picciau and Glenys Robinson to seek a mediation with His Excellency Mazin Abdulwahab Thiab, the Iraqi Ambassador in Italy - as well as the institutions of the Multinational Coalition in Iraq), Human Rights Watch has also recently described the repression of homosexuals in Iraq as “an authentic ethnic cleansing programme, a systematic campaign against the gay community which is being subjected to torture and murder”.

EveryOne Group, which is in direct contact with the president of Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hilli, as well as with the young asylum-seeker, is appealing to the Dutch and French authorities, as well as the members of the European Parliament, Commission and Council (particularly the Committee Against Torture) to grant Anwar Basim Saleh refugee status and suitable protection as soon as possible. We ask that his rights be recognised according to the Geneva Convention, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the international laws that defend a person’s right to life, health and personal freedom. We ask that Anwar be spared further psychological and physical stress, because just the news of a risk of him being deported back to Iraq could kill him.

We are requesting the intervention of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, asking the organization to be the spokesman for this case in order to guarantee the most correct and urgent procedure to ensure the boy is granted international protection and the risk of deportation is eliminated for good.

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 1:35 am
The atrocities perpetrated against gay men in Iraq leave me without words.

The Iraqi govt MUST be made to understand that the WORLD denounces these practices and they MUST NOT be allowed to continue. The govt must track these extremists and these crimes must be punished severely. NO IMPUNITY for these torturers and murderers.

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 1:43 am
From C2Causes: Rep. Jared Polis Tours Iraq With Gay Issues Firmly In Mind, posted about 5 months ago : Last week we reported on information that 6 men had been found dead in a Sadr city slum, all marred by signs reading "pervert" in Arabic, all killed because they were gay. (active link on site) This week, Rep. Jared Polis took a Congressional visit to Iraq where he had dinner with troops serving in the region, as well as taking the time to talk to human rights organizations and the officials currently controlling Iraq.

During his tour in Iraq, the Examiner reports (link) that Polis is also liaising with human rights groups about human rights violations that have recently been reported, such as the unconfirmed discovery of a shallow mass-grave of 25 gay Iraqis, and further cases including the death of two more men on April 4th who, again, unconfirmed but startling reports suggest were killed by a faction of the Iraqi military who, in turn, are blaming the killings on the families of the men, because, they say, they were so ashamed at a member of their family being gay.

The Denverpost also reports (link) that Polis was given a letter that was allegedly written by a man who had been incarcerated and severely beaten until he confessed to being a member of the UK based LGBT rights group Iraqi-LGBT. The man, the letter went on to allege, had been sentenced to death by the Karkh court.

The human rights group responsible for giving Polis the letter said that the man was later executed, although no official record of this has been forthcoming at this time.

"Is there anyone to help me before it is too late?" Was the last desperate plea of the man. His name was concealed, they said, so as to protect his family.

Polis presented pieces of the evidence he had gathered during his investigation to the human-rights committee of the Iraqi parliament.

"We will see whether the Iraqi government is serious about protecting the human rights of all Iraqis, and we can also see what role our own State Department can play in helping to protect this minority in Iraq," said Polis of his congressional visit to Iraq.

Polis also added that, in spite of official protests in Washington, involvement of the Iraqi government in the killing of homosexuals could not be ruled out and that the charge d'affaires in Baghdad was currently sifting through documentation and case testimony on the accusations of violence and executions perpetrated against Iraqi LGBTs.

No doubt this isn't the last we'll hear of this unfolding and very serious situation for LGBT Iraqis. To further highlight this issue to the American government, consider signing this Care2 petition (link) and help the plight of LGBT citizens in Iraq be recognized.

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 5:49 am

Grotesque . . . What an ugly, intolerant, murderous world!

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 6:57 am
This is a total invasion of someones privacy... a cruel and callous act committed against these people... it is just an excuse.. they need to confront their fears and hatred of gays and learn to embrace something that is foreign... tolerance and exceptance is the way to go.. not murder and persecution

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 8:58 am
Morally repugnant ! Please DON'T give me any of this kind of "old time religion" - it isn't GOOD enough for me !

Tuesday September 22, 2009, 2:36 pm
This has sickened me. All in the name of religion. Spare me. It's due to homophobia, hate and FEAR of one's own sexuality. Thanks Alba.

Wednesday September 23, 2009, 8:24 pm
Indeed this is very disturbing, however, sadly very true. Homophobia is a destructive, and often deadly, learned behavior whose roots are firmly watered and nurtured by many world religions.