■ Men suspected of being gay were gunned down in March last year in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Both the United Nations IRIN news service and the BBC report a rising number of anti-gay killings in Iraq by Shia fundamentalist death squads.

Photographs on this page courtesy Iraqi LGBT/Outrage!

LONDON, April 3, 2007  –  Iraqi lesbians and gays continue to be subjected a systematic reign of terror by Shia death squads, Ali Hili, the coordinator of the human rights group Iraqi LGBT, said in London this morning.

“The government of Iraq refuses to crack down on the killers or to take any action to protect its gay citizens. It is a regime that is dominated by Shia fanatics and homophobes,” he pointed out..

Mr Hili lists below a few examples of the many death squad killings of gay Iraqis.

“Supporters of the fundamentalist Sadr and Badr militias boast that they are cleansing Iraq of what they call ‘sexual perverts’. They are open about terrorising gay Iraqis to make them flee the country and murdering those who fail to leave. Their goal is a queer-free, pro-homophobic Iraq. They are dragging our country back to the dark ages,” said the London-based Mr Hili, who is also Middle East spokesperson for the gay human rights group, OutRage!

“Some members of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government are linked to the anti-gay death squads. They are the political representatives of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Both these parties have militias, respectively the Mahdi army and the Badr brigades, who are responsible for the execution-style killing of lesbian and gay Iraqis – and the murder of many other Iraqis, including Sunni Muslims, trade unionists, unveiled women, journalists and men wearing shorts, jeans or western-style haircuts.

Murdered for Wearing Tennis Shorts ■ On May 25, 2006, Wissam Auda (left), an Iraqi Olympic squad tennis player,  his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid (right), and and his teammate Nasser Ali Hatem, were shot at close range and killed in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad by fundamentalist militias. Their 'crime' was wearing Western-style tennis shorts, and were perceived as being gay.

“The murder of gay Iraqis has the support of highly influential religious leaders, such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa in late 2005, calling for the execution of gay people in the ‘most severe way possible’. After international protests, he removed the fatwa from his website, but the fatwa itself has not been rescinded. It remains in force and is the spiritual sanction for the death squads to murder gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,” said Mr Hili.

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) has corroborated Iraqi LGBT’s claims of “sexual cleansing” by the death squads and Islamist courts:

"Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them," January’s UNAMI report said.

"There have been a number of assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq…At least five homosexual males were reported to have been kidnapped from Shaab area in the first week of November (2006) by one of the main militias. The mutilated body of Amjad, one of the kidnapped, appeared in the same area after a few days. [We were] also alerted to the existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed," UNAMI said.

This UNAMI report provoked a hostile reaction from the government of Iraq, which suggested that gay people are unIraqi and unIslamic: here was information in the report that we cannot accept here in Iraq. The report, for example, spoke about the phenomenon of homosexuality and giving them their rights," said Mr al-Dabbagh, a spokesperson for the Iraqi government. "Such statements are not suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected. They (the UN) should respect the values and traditions here in Iraq.”

Iraq’s many LGBT victims of the death squads

Here are details of a few of the LGBTs who have been murdered in Iraq in recent months:

● Anwar, aged 34, a taxi driver, was a member of Iraqi LGBT and helped run one of the group’s safe houses in the city of Najaf. He disappeared in January 2007. He was arrested in his taxi after being stopped at a police and militia checkpoint. His body was found in March 2007. He had been subjected to an execution-style killing.

● Nouri, aged 29, a tailor, was kidnapped in the city of Karbala in February 2007. He had received many death threats by letter and phone in the past, accusing him of leading a gay life. He was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head severed.

Khalid (left), a 19 year old gay man, a college student who lived in al-Kadomya, was kidnapped in December 2006. Three months later, his family was handed his tortured and burned remains.

● Hazim, a 21-year-old man, was taken by police officers from his house in Baghdad in February 2007. He was well-known to be gay. After threats because of his homosexuality, his family was forced to leave their home. Hazim’s body was subsequently found with several shots to the head.

● Sayf, a gay 25-year-old, worked for the Iraqi police as a translator. He was kidnapped in the Al-Adhamya suburb by black masked men in Ministry of Interior security force uniforms who drove a marked police car. Almost certainly they were members of the Badr militia which has infiltrated the Interior Ministry and police. Sayf’s body was found several days later, with his head cut off.

● Khaldon, a 45 year old gay man lived in al-Hurriya, a mainly Shia neighborhood of Baghdad. He worked as a chef. The Sadr militia, the Mahdi army, kidnapped him in November 2006. His decaying corpse was found in February 2007.
 

Hasan Sabeh (left), a 34 year old transvestite - also known as Tamara - worked in the fashion industry designing women’s clothes.  He lived in the al-Mansor district of Baghdad.

Hasan was seized in the street by an Islamist death squad and hanged in public on the holy Shia religious day, 11 January 2007. His body was mutilated and cut to pieces. When his brother-in-law tried to defend him, he was also murdered.

● Four gay friends had been receiving threatening letters at their Baghdad houses. All four were arrested on 26 December 2006 by militia at a roadside checkpoint. They were interrogated about whether they were Sunnis.

Their identity cards showed that three of the men were Shia. These three men were released after several hours of interrogation. The fourth man, Samer, a 26 year old a Sunni who lived in Zayona, was later found with gunshot wounds to his head, his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back. His body showed marks of torture and many burns. It is not clear whether Samer was executed because he was Sunni or gay or both.

Alan Thomas, was a 23 year old, Christian gay Iraqi who lived in al-Gadeer, a Shia majority district of Baghdad. He received many threats for being gay and was eventually kidnapped and executed by Shia death squads in late 2006.

Alan Thomas, was a 23 year old, Christian gay Iraqi who lived in al-Gadeer, a Shia majority district of Baghdad. He received many threats for being gay and was eventually kidnapped and executed by Shia death squads in late 2006.

‘His older sister spoke to me over the phone from Baghdad; explaining how the murder of her only brother caused the death of their sick elderly mother,” said Mr. Hili. She told me: The new Iraqi evil regime does not provide effective protection to the population of Iraq.  Shia militias act in collusion with security force gangs to take revenge on the Sunni’s and other minorities.’”

Occasionally, some victims of the fundamentalists have been able to buy their survival. Hamid A, a 44 year old bisexual man, from the Al-Talibya district. He was kidnapped twice by the Sadr militia. The first instance was in April 2006 when he, his nephew and his brother were kidnapped and tortured.  He was released in May 2006 after his tribe members paid a huge ransom to save his life and the lives of his relatives.  Hamid was kidnapped for a second time in November 2006 by the same Sadr militia, when an informant reported that he was drinking alcohol and that he was suspected of being gay. He was held in a big office in Sadr city, along with other detainees - most of them Sunnis and Christians.  Again, he was ransomed and is now in hiding; a rare survivor of the Sadr militia interrogation centres.

“Heterosexual friends of gays are also executed,” Mr. Hili said.

“This happened to Majid Sahi, aged 28, a civil engineer. He had been helping Iraqi LGBT members in Baghdad. Abducted by the Badr militia from his home, they objected to his association with gay Iraqis.”

His family was advised by the Badr forces that their son’s “immoral behaviour” was the reason for his kidnapping. His body was found in Baghdad, with bullet wounds in the back of his head, on 23 February 2007.

“Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of lesbian and gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra,” reports Peter Tatchell of OutRage!, who is working closely with Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT.

“These heroic activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon,” said Mr Tatchell.

Ali Hili is making an appeal for donations to fund the work of Iraqi LGBT: “Iraqi LGBT needs donations to help gay people in Iraq who are fleeing the death squads.

“We need money for safe houses, food, electricity, security protection and clothing - and to help pay the phone bills of members of the Iraqi LGBT group. They are sending us information about the homophobic killings, at great risk to their own lives.

“Many of the people we are helping had nothing but the clothes on their backs, when they fled the attacks by fundamentalist militias.

“We are also paying for medication for members who are HIV positive.  Otherwise, they will not get treatment. If it is discovered that they have HIV, they will surely be killed,” suggested Mr Hili.

■ The UK-based gay rights group OutRage! is working with Iraqi LGBT to support its work. Iraqi LGBT is coordinated by Ali Hili from the safety of London UK. The group does not yet have a bank account.

Operating an Iraqi LGBT bank account in Baghdad would be suicide. For this reason, it has to operate its finances from London. All the group’s members in London are Iraqi refugees seeking asylum. Their lack of proper legal status makes it difficult for them to open a bank account in the UK. This is why Iraqi LGBT is asking that cheques be made payable to:

“OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT, England, UK.

OutRage! then forwards the donations received to Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT for wire transfer to Baghdad.

SEE ALSO

Focus on Teens Trapped In Commercial Gay Sex Trade in Iraq.  Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, has started a desperate new life since being forced into the sex trade in Baghdad, joining a growing number of adolescents soliciting in Iraq under the threat of street gangs or the force of poverty.  “Every day I cry at night,” Feiraz said.  “I’m a homosexual and was forced to work as a prostitute because one of the people I had sex with took pictures of me in bed and said that, if I didn't work for him, he was going to send the pictures to my family.”  (UK Gay News, August 8, 2005)

Iraqi Gays Face Abuse and Murder.  As Iraq wrestles with its planned constitution, the country’s gays and lesbians face blackmail, rape and murder, a LGBT human rights group charged today.  (UK Gay News, August 8, 2005)

Iraqi Police Execute “Gay” Child in Baghdad.  Gay human rights group Outrage! has today accused Iraqi police of executing a 14 year old boy in the al-Dura district of Baghdad in early April. (UK Gay News, May 4, 2006)

Ahmed’s Story – A Cruel, Barbaric Death.  By Ali Hili.  Ahmed Khalil was a likeable, playful 14 year old boy, born in the southern Iraqi town of al-Ammara.  The eldest child, he came from an uneducated family who lived in great poverty.  (UK Gay News, May 4, 2006)

Five Gay Activists Kidnapped In al-Shaab District of Baghdad.  Five gay activists were abducted at gun-point by Iraqi police in Baghdad on November 9 – and nothing has been heard of them since then.  It is feared they may have been murdered by death squads – the armed wings of parties in the Bush and Blair-backed Iraqi government –operating under the cover of the Iraqi police.  (UK Gay News, December 6, 2006)

Ovation for Gay Iraqi at London ‘Faith’ Conference.  The leader of the gay rights group Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hili, received a standing ovation from 250 delegates when he addressed the “Faith, Homophobia and Human Rights” conference in London on Saturday. (UK Gay News, February 19, 2007)

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Posted: 3 April 2007 at 15:00 (UK time)