Saddam was a bloodthirsty dictator, but unlike in today's “democratic” Iraq, homosexuality was tolerated. Since his deposition and capitulation, executions of gays, lesbians, and transgender people have been the order of the day.
Iraq
Defenseless targets. The number of gay murders by religious fanatics continues to escalate, adding yet another deep wound to that suffering land. It is a real ’sexual cleansing“, organized by the death squads of the Iraqi police, who during the day dress as officers and at night as executioners. A moral crusade for purification that isn't reserved just for gays, but for all "infidels" who infect society with their "depravity and perversion." Thanks to a gratuitous and extreme interpretation of Sharia law, anyone who commits "crimes against Islam" is added to the list of culprits. These include listening to Western music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling films, working as a barber, dancing, having a Sunni name, committing adultery, and, in the case of women, even not covering themselves adequately or walking unaccompanied by a man.
Sometimes committed by Shiite police-militiamen, others by fanatical clerics, these murders are a sign of an unprecedented level of barbarism.
This corrupt government and police fail to protect the young victims of gay porn trafficking, who are blackmailed into publishing videos and photos if they refuse to cooperate. Unfortunately, this material, if published, would lead to the execution of these victims by Shiite militias.
The international mobilization. British human rights organization LGBT OutRage! is working with a partner group on the ground to rescue these persecuted people., following the clandestine work of gay activists in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra.
Last November, five gay men who worked for this salvation network were murdered in a district of Baghdad: Amjad 27 years old, Rafid 29 years old, Hassan 24 years old, Ayman 19 years old and Ali 21 years old.
Last June, two thirty-year-old girls They were mutilated and killed in their shelter in Najaf along with a child they had rescued from child trafficking.
The fourteen-year-old Ahmed Khalil He had been charged with the crime of corrupting society because of his homosexuality. In April 2006, four police officers wearing Badr masks repeatedly shot him in cold blood. Wathiq, 29 years old, Wathiq, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad last March. His parents paid the requested sum of $11,000 to the Badr militia, hoping to save him. In vain, however, as a few days later, his mutilated and headless body was found.
Wissam Auda He was a member of the Iraqi Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play at Wimbledon this year. He had been threatened because of his homosexuality. On May 25, 2006, they ambushed him, forced him out of the vehicle he was traveling in, and executed him mercilessly. Guilty of what? He was wearing shorts. And all this under the watchful eye of a national military checkpoint.
A 23-year-old art student, Karzan, has a similar history to that of the’actor Bashar, 34 years old. Both their families were executed because they refused to bring their children to justice.
And again, Nyaz, a 28-year-old dentist from Baghdad, she was forced to give up her relationship with another woman and marry an old mullah friend of Moqtada al-Sadr. At the risk of the lives of all her family members.
Is this the democracy the Middle East should happily accept?