Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target

[ECH1969]

Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.

There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country.

Eleven-year-old Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped by policemen from the front of his house last month. He was known in his district to have been forced into prostitution. His father Hassan told me he searched for his son for three days after his abduction, then found him, shot in the head. A copy of the death certificate confirms the cause of death.

Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1838222,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

[WillParkinson]

1. Democracy at its finest...

I'm just sayin'

[Freedom_from_Chains]

14. That's imported "Bush" democracy

at it's finest.

[Zhade]

2. So much for a democracy.

When you allow murder due to a state religion, that ain't liberty, that's insanity.

[billyoc]

3. so it's legal to kill the kidnapping *victims*?

who's writing the laws over there, Rick Santorum?!

[Auntie Bush]

4. "who's writing the laws over there? The same people that

are or trying to over here! That's the scary part.

[cali]

8. Oh, please

that's as silly as anything I've seen on DU.

[Lyric]

22. Doesn't seem silly to me.

It might not *literally* be the same people, but they're the same *kind* of people. Religious control freaks who lack any semblance of human compassion. The ones who would dearly love to see America turned into a Jesus-centered version of the Taliban. People like good old Judge Roy Moore.

I have no doubt in my mind that there are plenty of lawmakers in America who'd gladly line up to cast the first stone if it were socially acceptable in America to execute people for being gay. They dehumanize us. They portray us as evil "others" with destructive agendas. They're painting a picture of gay people as a threat to the "American way of life". We're being blamed for everything from 9-11 to hurricanes, diseases, and the breakdown of marriages and families. To me, that all looks like the first steps in an organized attempt to create the kind of negative social perception of gay people that would permit them to pass laws against us. If given ample time and little enough resistance, imprisonment or death as punishment for homosexual acts could potentially be seen here in America within 100 years.

I honestly believe these people are secretly envious of the nations in the Middle East that are ruled with an religiously centered iron fist. They want that for themselves--a place where they can be as cruel and violently judgemental as they want to be, in their heart of hearts. A place where conversion at gunpoint is a legal and expected practice. A place where infidels, heretics, immorals, and heathens are summarily disposed of.

When it comes to my personal safety, I trust no one who values the senseless whims of their chosen deity over the very real pain and suffering they inflict upon their fellow human beings.

[BR_Parkway]

24. Spot on except for the 100 years part - Don't forget, Lawrence was just

overturned in the past few years - until that moment, it was perfectly legal in many states to lock up gays for sodomy.

And yeah, plenty of people in office or running for office who would advocate stoning gays to death

[rodeodance]

31. nicely said.

[Zhade]

47. Fantastic post. Thank you.

NT!

[Sapphocrat]

50. Excellent post. Well done -- and thank you.

And welcome to DU!

[Tight_rope]

67. I agree with you 100%.

[varun]

34. Three guys beat up a gay man in New Mexico

recently....to "straighten him up".

Not exactly what's happening in Iraq, but both are rooted in religious bigotry.

[Occulus]

38. Will you continue to think that after states start enacting legislation

which makes "gay panic" a plausible defense?

They said "it's only about marriage" when my state passed its anti-gay marriage amendment. Guess what they turned around and did?

They're starting to use that as a basis to forbid private companies from giving partner benefits.

Look, as a gay man, I can't look at the cross around someone's neck without seeing anything but a message that says to me, "I might beat you up or kill you." I can't walk down the street holding the hand of the person I care about because I might be beaten or killed for it. If you think that's "silly", shove it up your ass. It happens here too, it's just not so blatant.

:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

(PS: Did you hear about the gay guy recently who went to a party with a female friend of his, only to be beaten for several hours for being gay? Do you know what they did to him? The people at the party kidnapped him and beat him until the sun came up to scare him straight. But I guess that's just more "sillines" as far as you're concerned, right?)

[Jacobin]

11. Clue phone ringing

They are ignoring the laws we wrote for them.

The shia are enforcing sharia law.

Google that if you want to scare yourself

[cali]

15. duh.

Now try reading the post I was responding to.

[Occulus]

39. Why should he? YOU'RE the one who doesn't "get it".

The poster was talking about the religious. Such things as this are being done in the name of religion. Such people exist here, too. Those sorts would love to be able to do that here.

What part of this do you not understand? What part of what that poster said is in any way incorrect?

Your dismissive attitude toward this makes my blood boil. Who the fuck do you think you are calling such a totally plausible notion "silly?"

[bling bling]

60. Let's keep it realistic, though.

The United States did not write a law in the Iraqi constitution that it's legally o.k. to murder homosexuals AND murder the victims who were raped by pedaphiles.

You're really extrapolating the situation here to a highly radical degree if you believe that's something we wrote into their laws. NOT that this situation here isn't serious. But that's not the topic.

I'm seriously not trying to be dismissive either. But for someone to basically say "it's silly to think that the United States wrote the law that it's ok to murder homosexuals and murder victims of pedophiles" isn't really that outrageous. And I don't think it's fair to blast someone for being insensitive to the seriousnous of gay civil rights and hate crimes in our country when that was not within the context of their statement.

[Kailassa]

68. Actually, Sharia law was given legal status in their constitution.

And America agreed to that.

[bling bling]

59. What am I missing here?

The person you responded to was talking to post #4. Not you. No?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. It's legal to kill rape victims in their religion...

I thought we went over there to make things more civilized. Instead we helped them to make it just like every other Muslim state.
Duckie

[JerseygirlCT]

35. They've been doing this with women forever.

Honor killings and the like. Get raped, and then your family kills you for shaming the family.

It's so f'd up.

[Solo_in_MD]

5. Sharia at its finest

[mom cat]

6. Mission Accomplished Georgie.

You have created yet another intolerant, state with the same level of religious zealotry as your followers.

[Jacobin]

7. Which politician will be the first to say it;

Iraq was FAR better off with Saddam putting the lid on the Sharia law Shiite crowd who are the MAJORITY and who will control the country now that it is a 'democracy'...sort of.

Its like the neo cons didn't even take Iraq 101. Idiots

[daleo]

9. Here's a wiki account of treatment of gays under Saddam

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

[customerserviceguy]

29. Sorry

Brief jail time and a small fine don't exactly sound like tolerance to me. Maybe it's relative to what the rest of the Islamic world does, but it ain't freedom by any stretch of the imagination.

[billyoc]

42. I think the jail/fine was for prostitution. n/t

[daleo]

57. It sounds like Iraq was fairly tolerant, by middle eastern standards

But it certainly was a long way from acceptance. It sounds like it was better under Saddam than what is going on since Bush's "liberation", though.

[customerserviceguy]

66. All the "liberation" has done

is just expose the basest prejudices of the people. It's the same as when Tito died in Yugoslavia, all the hatred that was suppressed under the boot came out when the boot was lifted. It was bound to happen when Saddam died, and an Islamic regime took over.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Thank you international neocon conspiracy that got us into this war!

Women's rights out of the window. Rights of religious minorities gone. Gays getting the treatment that Christian fundies in America would love to do here.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[w4rma]

17. If that is true, then why do they support preachers with this view with

their money? Why do they give money to preachers who say that gays are the reason that America is being hit by hurricanes, etc?

President Reagan refused to fund research against AIDS because he thought that it was only affecting gay folks.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Occulus]

43. Go google Reagan +HIV and then get back to us n/t

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zhade]

48. "but who's fault is it they had the disease in the first place?"

What a nice bigoted statement to see on this board.

[Judi Lynn]

46. I remember people were very upset at the time that he was ignoring

the problem.

It looked as if the right-wing solution was the belief that the disease was moving so quickly that it would spread like wildfire and knock off the gay community and the problem would solve itself, from a right-wing perspective.

[megatherium]

54. Many people averted their eyes in those days.

Even the NY Times ignored the epidemic in the early 1980s. They ran a front page story about a herpes virus that was killing a troupe of dancing stallions, at a time when they had not yet run a front page story about AIDS. (They were forced to apologize after a firestorm of criticism.) Time magazine had a big cover story in 1983 or so about "The End of the Sexual Revolution," which talked about dangers of sex (mainly herpes). I recall being furious that this long article devoted one paragraph to AIDS.

As far as Reagan goes, it now appears that he didn't really know anything about the disease until Rock Hudson (an old Hollywood friend of his) had it -- Reagan asked his personal physician about the disease. The real villains in the Reagan administration are probably Garry Bauer and Bill Bennett, Reagan's domestic policy advisers. They were well aware of the disease, and made the decision to ignore it. I doubt they envisioned the disease killing all the gay population, however; more likely they envisioned the disease damaging the gay rights movement politically, as well as discouraging people from being gay (they thought gay sexuality was a choice) -- no one in those days understood that the virus had such a high mortality rate or that hundreds of thousands of Americans already had been infected with it.

[Sapphocrat]

55. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

But there sure seems to be a flood in here.

BS, I suggest you start doing your homework before you go off half-cocked on subjects about which you obviously know very little. Try starting with some reputable sources for your links, instead of right-wing trash like the National Review. Then go hit religioustolerance.org, or hatecrimes.org, or someplace that will clue you in to the reality of the growing threat of theocracy -- which mandates death by stoning of homosexuals, among other things -- in America.

Second, I gather you're not here to win friends, but you're certainly not going to influence people by resorting to calling others, or their claims, "retarded." Not only did you just insult one of DU's most respected posters, but you have offended a large swath of DUers who A) don't cotton to using an archaic, negative term for the developmentally disabled, and B) have developmentally-disabled loved ones.

Hint: Spend some time understanding why "Manthrax" and "Ann the Man" insults leveled at Ann Coulter are below the belt (literally and figuratively), and you may get a clue about the use of the word "retarded."

As for Reagan, funding for AIDS came only under duress -- don't you dare pretend it came from the good of his blackened little heart.

Here's an excerpt from one of my own articles (MODS: Again, this is my article, and I give myself permission to quote as much as I like) -- I invite you to find fault with the conclusions:

There was no rationale (for the media's silence on AIDS in the 1980s) — unless you want to credit the stifling conservatism of the times. Ronald Reagan was in office, and bolstering his complete disregard for those filthy homosexuals was the newly-organized extremist wing of the Radical Right, led by the most phobic of homophobes, Jerry Falwell.

And then there was the president's plain, willful ignorance. Even his White House physician, Brigadier General John Hutton, stated that Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was measles and would go away."

After Reagan's death, Allen White wrote:

By Feb. 1, 1983, 1,025 AIDS cases were reported, and at least 394 had died in the United States. Reagan said nothing. On April 23, 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced 4,177 reported cases in America and 1,807 deaths. In San Francisco, the health department reported more than 500 cases. Again, Reagan said nothing. ...

With each diagnosis, the pain and suffering spread across America. Everyone seemed to now know someone infected with AIDS. At a White House state dinner, first lady Nancy Reagan expressed concern for a guest showing signs of significant weight loss.

That guest was Rock Hudson.

<snip>

There is no denying that Rock Hudson's death was probably the number-one catalyst that forced the public — especially Americans — to reconsider the AIDS controversy. "Rock Hudson's death gave AIDS a face," said Morgan Fairchild.

But more than two years would pass before Ronald Reagan would even acknowledge the existence of AIDS, much less provide funding for research.

Wrote Allen White:

... Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases. ...

Reagan could have chosen to end the homophobic rhetoric that flowed from so many in his administration. Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan's surgeon general, has said that because of "intradepartmental politics" he was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.'"

<snip>

Revisionist history about Reagan must be rejected. Researchers, historians and AIDS experts who know the truth must not remain silent. Too many have died for that.

Yet it's hard to fight revisionist history about Reagan, when Reagan himself is at the core of it:

LARRY KING: AIDS — did — were we late on that?

REAGAN: I don't think — no, certainly we — it was a — we were not unnecessarily so. It was a plain case of catching up with things, and I immediately appointed a commission to get into the whole problem of AIDS and come back with the recommendations of what we could and should be doing.

KING: Do you think Rock Hudson focused a lot of our attention on it?

REAGAN: Oh, I think that brought a lot of attention to it, sure.

...

KING: Are you hopeful about it?

REAGAN: Well, yes, I think we have to be hopeful about it, or we'll find ourselves back in those days of the plagues... that wiped out millions of people.

-- "Larry King Live," January, 1990

[readmoreoften]

58. Wow a DUer supporting Reagan! How interesting.

Enjoy your stay.

[Sapphocrat]

62. Aw, now, RMO...

You KNOW there's such a thing as Reagan Democrats!

Of course, I thought most of them had died off with my parents' generation (all of whom begged for absolution in the confessional within two months of the inauguration)... but they DID exist! Really, they did!

And maybe they still do! I mean, nobody's disproved the existence of Bigfoot yet, right?

[Sapphocrat]

63. Oh, wait...

Somebody's been sent to... Well, let's put it this way...

When the crypt goes creak,
And the tombstones quake.
Spooks come out for a swinging wake.
Happy haunts materialize,
And begin to vocalize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

Now don't close your eyes,
And don't try to hide.
Or a silly spook may sit by your side.
Shrouded in a daft disguise,
They pretend to terrorize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize. ...

[Joe Bacon]

27. WRONG!

The real Jesus Nuts in America would LOVE to use the FINAL SOLUTION on ALL Gays and Lesbians!

[mogster]

32. Not true

They support it to the last line.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Vidar]

13. Fundamentalist butchers of the world unite!

[MrPrax]

18. War on Drugs...

Tell people you are fighting against poverty, and create poverty

Tell people you are fighting against drugs, and create drug addicts

Tell people you are fighting against terrorists, and create terrorists

It's always the opposite of whatever policy is instituted.

Anyone notice that all those Islam-o-fascists seem to win quite a bit inspite our best efforts -- Anyone notice that all those Fundie Christians seem to win quite a bit inspite OUR best efforts

The 'Green Belt' strategy has either been a failure or a brilliant success...

[KurtNYC]

69. Tell people no child left behind and defund schools

Tell people reduce the size of government and create the largest agency ever.
Tell people helping America vote act and stop re-counts and validation.

[EFerrari]

19. Congratulations, Republicans! You have spread your hate to Iraq.

I'm so proud to be an American under JUNIOR :sarcasm:

I can't WAIT until these people SHOWER US WITH ROSE PETALS!

WELL DONE, SOCIOPATHIC KILLERS! WE ARE SO SO PROUD NOW :sarcasm:

[superconnected]

20. Scary.

And even scarier because that's what it will be like here if the religious right ever gets their way.

[Jamastiene]

21. Typical. This goes back to what I originally said about the M.E.

:wtf: Why are we aligning with some of those types of people? Do I really need to ask? Our own right wing shithead government thinks the same way. They just haven't rolled out their long-ass tedious laws to destroy all gays yet. I guarantee it is in the works though. When was the last time anyone was actually outraged by a gay bashing in MSM? Hmm, Matthew Shepherd, that's when. Think gay bashings are that rare or have just stopped? Think again. You know, unofficially, our own country thinks it is an honour killing to murder gay people too. This doesn't surprise me at all.

I, for one, can say that payback is gonna be a bitch if I ever get into power. "Goodbye, scumbags" will be the new catch phrase as right wing assholes get theirs. I've had it with them.

[cshldoc]

23. They're all gay anyway...

"The Iraqi men are gay. You should see how they just sit around with each other, putting their arms around each other. And also, some of the Iraqis on base told me that having sex with women was for making children but having sex for pleasure was, well, a man's job." -- My brother in law, upon return from a tour of duty in Iraq last February.

Myself, I think some Iraqis were having a bit of sport with my young relative who, when you meet him, positively radiates a distinctly American combination of naive decency and simple-minded gullibility about the rest of the world.

[CJCRANE]

33. I've lived

in a muslim country and from what I can gather there used to be generally an attitude of turning a blind eye towards homosexuality in many arab countries (in fact there is one arab country where it is well-known that the leader is gay, but of course not spoken about in polite society).

However, there has been a massive rise in islamic fundamentalism in the last few years so attitudes are becoming very intolerant. For instance gay marriage was officially banned in 2004 in the muslim country I lived in (i.e it was happening previous to that), but this was only after it had become a big issue in American politics (Americans sometimes forget that the whole world watches CNN and follows the same hot-button issues).

NB: also note that in arab culture there are different names for the "active" and "passive" partner in gay sex and the "passive" partner is looked down upon more for some reason.

on edit: there was also a prejudice amongst some that homosexuality was quite prevalent amongst arabs but not amongst africans.

[JerseygirlCT]

36. Holding hands and the like are quite common in Arab culture

for men. You'll see it all the time. It's got nothing to do with sexual orientation, though. It's just so culturally different from what we're used to that people from here jump to that conclusion.

There is, however, this forbidden undercurrent of homosexuality in the culture. It's so very taboo, that I think the idea becomes more exciting. But it's a good way to find yourself dead.

[leQ]

40. when i went to school with a bunch of persian & kuwaiti students

their attitude about homosexuality was just as you said, a 'man's job' when it was for pleasure because it was a 'woman's job' to have children. made me happy is all i can say.

[Sapphocrat]

56. Would you ask your BIL something?

If "putting their arms around each other" makes all Iraqi men gay, what does he think about Texans who kiss and hold hands with Saudi royals?

http://www.priceofliberty.net/wp-content/images/!!!!bush_kiss.jpg



Btw, welcome to DU!

[tanyev]

25. Sounds like we have enabled an "Islamofascist" theocracy.

I thought that was what we were trying to prevent. :shrug:

[Nikki Stone 1]

53. Sounds like it was their intent all along. Why do you think Iran is scared

This group represented by the White House goes after functioning places (with infrastructures) on trumped up pretexts, creates chaos, sucks out their assets, and leaves them in the stone age with a fundamentalist mindset that allows them to take out their rage on each other.

[Vinca]

26. Thank you, King George, for your spreading of hatred,

destruction of lives and squandering of our treasury. It was all a giant waste, but we could have told you that from the start. This is what happens when the ignorant, incompetent and religiously fanatical have control of a country.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

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[rodeodance]

30. my gawd-and for this our troops are dying and being blown up never to

have normal lives again!

[Nikki Stone 1]

52. YES! Exactly! They are dying to create more death for the average

Iraqi. They are dying so that people can be killed for their sexual orientation. They are dying so that children can be forced into prostitution and can be killed if their pimp's pedophile customers sexually violate them.

[Zorra]

37. Iraq is becoming a republican's dream - a hate filled authoritarian

state governed by violent thugs that kill anyone that does not believe the same way they do.

Maybe this is exactly what the neocons have in mind for Iraq - the first fascist rez.

[Ilsa]

71. I think it's the perfect place for the bush* presidential library.

And he can move there, too, and live in this lovely democracy. I'm sure he'd enjoy biking and cearing brush there in the summer time.

[Nikki Stone 1]

51. Notice that children are being killed after being sold into prostitution

instead of being rescued from sexual slavery by their government.

This is evil totally unleashed.

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

64. Deleted message

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[Placebo]

65. If RW Christian Fundamentalists had their way...

this article would be about America as well.

Fundamentalism is the same no matter what religion it's tied to. Sad times.

[stepnw1f]

70. kick.... What Placebo Said

Hey right winger... you are seeing yourselves in this article, without a government to stop you. We all know why you truely hate the ACLU.

[stepnw1f]

72. Now We Know Why the GOP Says Things Are Fine in Iraq

I guess they approve of this... afterall, today's Iraqi government is of their making.