Reply #9: Here's a wiki account of treatment of gays under Saddam [View All]

[daleo]

Saddam regime: opposition and tolerance
Reports about the treatment of Iraqi homosexuals during the rule of the Ba'athist Party oftentimes seem to conflict with each other, and what little information does exist is from the 1990s.

In the 1990s the Iraqi representatives to the United Nations opposed having the body address gay rights concerns or give consultative status to international gay rights organizations, on religious grounds. Some recent reports from the United Nations have said that Saddam Iraqi security forces would often harass and abuse Iraqi gays, and that honor killings of gay family members were tolerated, and still are.

Yet, some reports from Iraqis have suggested that an active gay nightlife was tolerated by the Ba'athist government, including nightclubs and annual events with transgendered people, and that even homosexual prostitution was generally overlooked by the regime in the 1990s, at the most being something that incurred brief jail time and a small fine.<9>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_rights_in_Iraq#Saddam_regime:_opposition_and_tolerance