HUMAN RIGHTS Watch yesterday urged that the Iraqi government do more to protect gay men, saying militiamen have killed and tortured scores in recent months as part of a “social cleansing” campaign.
Although the scope of the problem remains unclear, hundreds of gay men may have been killed this year in predominantly Shia Muslim areas, the report’s authors say, basing their conclusion on interviews with gay Iraqi men, hospital officials and an unnamed UN official in Baghdad.
“The government has done absolutely nothing to respond,” said Scott Long, director of the gay rights programme at Human Rights Watch. “So far there has been pretty much a stone wall.”
Homosexuality was tacitly accepted during the last years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, but Iraqis have long viewed it as taboo and shameful.
Iraq’s human rights minister, Wijdan Salim, has expressed concern about the reported killings, but few other government officials have addressed the issue publicly or indicated that they are disturbed by the reports.
A senior police official in Baghdad said authorities could not effectively protect gay men because they often do not report crimes.
Reports of killings targeting gay men began circulating early this spring in Sadr City, a conservative Shia district in eastern Baghdad.
Gay men were also reportedly slain in Basra, Najaf and Diyala province, Human Rights Watch said.
Gay activists say militiamen loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al- Sadr had target lists containing the names of men suspected of being gay. Some were killed and some were tortured, they say. Human Rights Watch says a commonly reported form of torture involved injecting super-glue into men’s rectums.
When violence in Iraq began ebbing in 2008 and militia and insurgent leaders lost sway in several parts of the country, social norms became less strict. Women began to shed abayas, long black robes that cover them from head to toe, in certain formerly conservative neighbourhoods.
Some shops began selling alcohol openly. And gay men began to congregate in cafes and other venues for parties. The advent of the internet in Iraq after the 2003 invasion also allowed gay men to form bonds and circles of friends.
The attacks on gay men appear to have coincided with a call by religious leaders in Sadr City and other Shia communities to curb behaviour clerics called unnatural and unhealthy.
Sadr movement officials say they condemn homosexuality, but have denied participating in violence targeting gay men.
Sadr City residents opposed to homosexuality said in interviews that the presence of gay men became overt after the Iraqi army was allowed to move into the district in the spring of 2008, asserting control over a vast area formerly controlled by Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi army.
“When the Iraqi army started coming here, this phenomenon started coming to our area,” said Ali Abu Kara (23), a mechanic who identified himself as a member of the Mahdi army. “We felt very glad when those puppies were killed,” he added, using a pejorative term for gay men.
Human Rights Watch said the Mahdi army, which has been observing a ceasefire for more than a year, appears to have used the gay issue to build its image. – ( LA Times-Washington Postservice)