After allegations that American soldiers were involved in attacks and murders of gay Iraqis were declared bunk, it’s nice to see at least one organization acting responsibly in raising awareness for persecuted homos there. Human Rights Watch today reports “hundreds” of gay men have been tortured and killed in recent months, some at the hands of the nation’s own security forces.
While attacking gays is nothing new in the country (so-called “tolerance” under Saddam Hussein’s rule was always met with shaming and “honor” attacks), victims and doctors report a severe uptick in recent months, and an end to the violence — often found in Shiite Muslim regions — is nowhere in sight. Says HRW’s gay division director Scott Long: “The government has done absolutely nothing to respond. So far there has been pretty much a stone wall.”
According to Human Rights Watch, which is urging a government crackdown, attackers target people on the streets or storm homes, where they conduct interrogations and demand names of suspected gay men. Many end up in hospitals and morgues, the organization said, basing its conclusion on reports from doctors.
Men have been threatened with “honor killings” by relatives worried that their “unmanly behavior” will ruin the family’s reputation, Human Rights Watch said.
Killings, kidnappings and torture of those suspected of homosexual conduct have intensified in areas such as the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, the watchdog said.
“The Shiite people started this war and especially what happened in Sadr City,” Qaisar said, adding that his sister-in-law had warned him against going to the area.
And what about Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia? It was only in May that his spokesperson was calling for an end to anti-gay violence, even while branding homos as vile. HRW says al-Sadr has shown no such restraint. In fact, he’s got lists of names he’s directly going after.
Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which is active in Sadr City, has joined in the attacks and defends its actions as a way to stop the “feminization” of Iraqi men, the report said.
“We have testimony that indicates that the nation’s security forces are taking part in the attacks,” Long said.
The group interviewed more than 50 people who gave accounts of abuses, beatings and stops at security checkpoints, he said.
“When the gay killings started and when they started go(ing) after them at checkpoints … we started to change our look,” said Basim, who also used a pseudonym.
“These killings point to the continuing and lethal failure of Iraq’s post-occupation authorities to establish the rule of law and protect their citizens,” said Rasha Moumneh, Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Well at least the U.S. State Department “absolutely condemn[s]” this sort of thing.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
(Photo via GWB)
Maroqui
Instead being armchair revolutionaries, we can be donation-revolutionaries by supporting the only group that actively defends and protects LGBT Iraqis (the safe-house in Baghdad for instance, mentioned in the report)
http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
Or donate to Helem, a Lebanese LGBT NGO, that also supports Iraqi LGBT who fled to Lebanon
http://www.helem.net/
ThinkRealHard
Religion strikes again.
schlukitz
@ThinkRealHard:
Religion strikes again.
It never stopped for a moment.
ThinkRealHard
@Maroqui: Are you guys trying to end religion? That would be progress.
Bill Perdue
Religion is the enemy but there’s a lot more than religion involved here.
This reign of terror is the result of the invasion and occupation by the US. “Shock and awe” on a massive, sustained scale over the last decade led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis. It began with the murder of the innocents – Clinton’s embargo of food, medical and sanitary supplies: according to the UN and relief agencies killed 567,000, most of them children.
Actually it’s too neutral to call them deaths. Those 1,000,000 or so Iraqi’s and growing numbers of Afghani civilians were murdered for their oil and gas. Such slaughter induced by colonialist invaders like the US and its puppet states degraded Iraqi society and continues to propel it deeper and deeper into violence and mayhem.
Everyone should contribute to http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/ . Their work is valuable and funds are urgently needed but they can only save a few.
The solution lies in building an anti-war movement that, working with the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, the Electricity Association and the General Federation of Workers Councils and with dissident GI’s can compel US withdrawal of from the region. We need to fight here in US for the total and immediate withdrawal of all US forces from South Asia and for cutting the US purse strings that bankroll zionist policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
And for GLBT folks in the US part of the solution lies in demanding that the US antiwar movement take up this question. They have huge recourses and we need their help. Start with US Labor Against the War and E-mail them at [email protected] Pass on the facts and ask them to take a stand.
Bring the troops home. Bring the naval and air fleets home. Bring the Blackwater mercenaries home in chains. If they or any military officers are accused of war crimes prosecute them before the World Court. Withdraw the CIA and stop the Clinton Bush Obama policy of kidnapping, torturing and murdering political and military opponents.
Bill Perdue
Other important antiwar groups to get in touch with are Iraq Veterans Against the War at mailto:[email protected] and the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations https://natassembly.org/Contact_Us.html Pass on the facts and ask them to take a stand.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: To stop all of these wars the American people need to push for it. After the election they seem to have lost interest in bringing home the troops. Maybe our politicians are afraid of the GI’s coming home to find no jobs. The expanding Afghanistan war seems to go on just so Obama can show that he is strong on defense, he used it during the primary and general election. The question is, what exactly to they plan to achieve in Afghanistan? They don’t have oil, just dirt and opium. If these wars, even one would end, there would be plenty of money for health care.
Bill Perdue
@InExile: You seem uninformed about American imperial goals. They want to control gas pipelines out of the Caucasus region running thru Afghanistan into Pakistan and India. It means big bucks for American companies.
How would you or the other Clintonistas have a clue what the American people are for or against? The only thing you’re interested in is if they’re for or against the Clintons. It’s a somewhat narrow focus and it explains why you don’t have a clue about why the rest of us think the Clintons are as bad as McCain, the Bushes and Obama.
David Koppel, speaking on NPRs “All things Considered” program on June 11th 2007 said that “Democrats are telling voters that if they are elected, all U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq. But as Sen. Hillary Clinton privately told a senor military adviser, she knows there will be some troops there for decades. It’s an example of how in some cases, politics can force dishonesty.” Obama plans in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are a replay of Nixon’s plan in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in and will have the same outcome.
Don’t fall for the lie that he war in Iraq is anywhere near over. It’s still about the oil. The oil and nothing else. The war is not about Obama’s ego.
Republican Senator CHARLES HAGEL: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.” (Speaking at Catholic University, Sept. 24, 2007)
Former Federal Reserve Chairman ALAN GREENSPAN, in his book The Age of Turbulence; Adventures in a New World: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Democratic Senator JOHN TESTER: “We’re still fighting a war in Iraq and people who are honest about it will admit we’re there over oil.” (Associated Press, Sept. 24, 2007)
General JOHN ABIZAID, retired commander of CENTCOM: “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that.” (Speaking at Stanford University, Oct. 13, 2007)
In their pursuit of oil hegemony and controlling the profits of gas pipe lines US military commanders deliberatly set Sunni against Shiite, and both agaisnt Kurds. It’s why the US arms both sunni police and shiite militia who’ve declared open season on GLBT folks. Scapegoat and divide and rule are the names of their game. Get them distracted fighting each other and killing us and the oil piracy will be that much easier. That’s the common policy of the Bushes, the Clintons and Obama.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: Of coarse I know this is about oil but as usual you have to turn it into an attack on the Clintons, Hillary wanted to bring home all the troops, Obama wanted an expansion of the Afghan war.
My point is, what happened to the antiwar protesters? The Cindy Shehans have become almost silent or maybe it is our right wing media keeping them silenced. It just seems that since the economy fell the antiwar movement has stopped. It started as a major campaign issue in 2008 but has just gone away. Our country doesn’t have the money to spend on these wars not to mention the loss of human life.
Bill Perdue
@InExile: “Hillary wanted to bring home all the troops” Bull. You’re lying again.
Clinotn didn’t plan on bringing home the troops until after 2013. She voted for the invasion and has always been a war hawk. She voted for resolutions demanding that the Iraqis turn oner their oil US companies. She’s as bad as Obama, Bill Clinton, McCain and the Bushes.
And thats the point.
The antiwar movement is rebuilding after the campaign. There were similar lulls in activity in the antiwar movement in the sixties and seventies.
The war is exaserbating economic failure.
Bill Perdue
Before spell check ^^^^, and after:
“Hillary wanted to bring home all the troops” Bull. You’re lying again.
Clinton didn’t plan on bringing home the troops until after 2013. She voted for the invasion and has always been a war hawk. She voted for resolutions demanding that the Iraqis turn over their oil US companies. She’s as bad as Obama, Bill Clinton, McCain and the Bushes. The only solution is immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of US troops.
And that’s the point.
The antiwar movement is rebuilding after the campaign. There were similar lulls in activity in the antiwar movement in the sixties and seventies.
The war is exacerbating economic failure.
paul canning
If you want to practically help send some $$$ the way of ‘Iraqi LGBT’ http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com
They run safe houses inside Iraq as well as supporting refugees in the rest of the middle east.
Whilst the HRW report is good news for raising the profile of the pogrom, only Iraqi LGBT is actually supporting people (saving them from murder) inside the country. But funds are scarce and they consequently have to turn people away.
To find out more, read their annual report which is published on their website.
Bill Perdue
I believe that Cindy Sheehan can be reached though CODEPINK.
http://www.codepinkalert.org/
Last I heard she was planning on mounting a congressinal campaign against both war parties, the Democrats and Republicans. I don’t know how that’s going. I’ll call some of the antiwar folks on the SF Central Labor Council and let you know what they say about her campaign.
If Kucinich were serious that’s what he’d do, but then he’s miss out on all those corportate bribes, er, contributions.
paul canning
@Maroqui:
Please *don’t* send funding support to Helem! See here (par 8) for why http://twitzap.com/u/6XA
Bill Perdue
@paul canning: Paul Canning is right on the money.
Send what you can.
They do vital work literally saving the lives of as many of our brothers and sisters as they can. Our contributions will allow them to save more lives.
sal(the original)
my heart aches!goodness asylum please for these folks
Tallskin
Not sure that western imperialism is responsible for the persecution/murder of gays in Egypt, syria, Iran, etc and other (well known) liberal muslim countries.
But hey, I could be wrong
Bill Perdue
@Tallskin: The Syrians and Egyptians arrest imprison and torture GLBT folks and the Iranian ayatollahs engage in mass legalized lynching. zionist society is a mirror image of their American patron state and a veritable sewer of homohating and racism. Conditions range from bad to desperate in war ravaged South Asia and they’re getting worse. That much is undeniable.
For the record, English and other European colonists introduced their rancid christer based anti-GLBT legal codes into most of their former colonies and many, like the United States, are still in the process of getting rid of them. For a brutally honest look at how homohating, christian cultism, colonialism and racism intersected in history rent a copy of the film Proteus, Strand Releasing, 2004, directed by John Greyson with English and Afrikaans subtitles. That film is 97 minutes of undeniable history. After seeing it you can deny it and downplay it you want. But most in our communities agree that colonialism and christianity and racism are linked and that their imposition on colonized regions leads to widespread violence against us in former European colonies. Then and now.
This question though is about the role of the US in invading Iraq and Afghanistan, in supporting zionist ethnic cleansing and conducting cross border attacks on Syria and Pakistan. Those events had the effect of leading to a vast increase in violence against GLBT folks throughout South Asia. That too is undeniable.
What we can hopefully agree on is the need to demand that the US and the EU governments adopt a welcoming policy of asylum, as long as it’s needed, for GLBT refugees from places like US occupied Afghanistan and Iraq and ayatollah infested Iran. They need asylum and financial and medical assistance urgently. While we’re waiting for miracles from the homohating racists who run most of those governments we should contribute to http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/ who are doing vital work protecting the lives of many of our brothers and sisters.