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Iraq's Anti-Gay Pogrom
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Iraqis look at the bodies of three men who were found dead in Ramadi, Iraq. Unknown gunmen killed 3 people, two Egyptians and one Iraqi, and left notes on their bodies claiming that they were homosexuals and agents, police said. Photo: Bilal Hussein / AP Photo
Gay men across Iraq are being rounded up, tortured, and killed by the country’s militias, including the feared Mahdi Army—while the government stands by. The Daily Beast’s Parvez Sharma gets an early look at a report documenting the brutality.
A mostly silent campaign of death has been moving across Iraq since early 2009. A landmark new report, to be released by Human Rights Watch in Beirut on Monday, has been made exclusively available to The Daily Beast’s Parvez Sharma. The 67-page report, which includes chilling testimony from survivors, details the murders of scores of men suspected of homosexual conduct.
The key findings include:
•The main culprits, it seems, are the Shia militias that owe allegiance to Moqtada al-Sadr, and the giant Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad seems to be the epicenter.
•Details are emerging of other militias being involved as well, with some—allegedly connected to al Qaeda—engaged in a kind of moral cleansing competition with the Sadrists.
•The men are targeted for apparently trivial details about their appearance, like the length of their hair and the fit or style of their clothes.
“He was very public, everybody knew he was gay. His family said his killers made a CD of how he was killed—they filmed it. They slaughtered him; they cut his throat.”
•The campaign remains at its most intense in Baghdad, but men also have been killed and tortured in Najaf, Kirkuk, and Basra.
•Murders have been committed with impunity and are admonitory in intent. Corpses have been dumped in garbage or hung as warnings on the street. The killers invade homes, abducting sons or brothers, leaving their mutilated bodies in the neighborhood the next day. They interrogate and brutalize men to extract names of other people suspected of homosexual conduct. They specialize in grotesque and appalling torture.
•Bodies have appeared by the dozens in hospitals and morgues. How many have been killed will likely never be known; the failure of authorities to investigate compounds the fear and shame of families to ensure that reliable figures are unattainable.
Many Iraqi men targeted in the killing campaign are being forced to flee the country and end up in surrounding countries where homosexuality is also criminalized. The report recommends that urgent action be taken to aid the safe resettlement in third countries of men who have managed to escape. For those who remain, fear and loathing seem to be a continuing fact of life.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
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Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
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Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
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Oh really nightdragon83?
The worst thing that happens to Gays and Lesbians is people make fun of the parades or Brokeback Mountain doesn't win an Oscar?
What about the slow and painful murder of Matthew Shephard?
Or the gay teen in California last year who was shot to death by a classmate because he was gay? Or the gay kids who commit suicide because their families won't accept them and kick them out to the streets?
Why don't you go hang out with Sarah Palin and the other asshats in the republican party?
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The only part of the slow painful murder of Matthew Shephard was he died. The rest of the story was fake.
So, do you not think that being treated like second class citizens and not afforded the same rights and privelages are heterosexuals counts as intolerance and hate?
tell that to Matthew Shepherd.
Oh braveheart "nightdragon" who lives in his Mom's basement and can't get a girlfriend, American homosexuals know plenty about what "real" hate and intolerance look like. Loser.
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nightdragon - are you fricken kidding me!?! I dare you, I double dare you to dress totally gay and walk into a cowboy bar in the midwest or the south. Gay people are targeted for violence - it is very real. In my own high school, kids who seemed a little different or weren't macho enough were targeted by jocks as being fags and some of them were beat up, more than once. There is nothing worse for most kids than to be thought of as gay - that shows you the level of acceptance. Of course, it is far, far worse in Iraq right now, but the message drawn should be to see the hideous face of intolerance and how it can lead to mass murder. Instead, you draw a lesson that everyone should be quiet about gay rights. I'm as straight as they get, but I've faced down bullies who were picking on "fags" - how about you?
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Sick.
As for you crazy " People of God, "
being gay is not a choice.
Nobody chooses to live an entire life of ridicule, and isolation.
They're not sinners. It's biological.
So get past your books of fairy tales written
thousands of years ago by a bunch of men who
just made stuff up, washing the gullible masses,
still sheep like today.
Time to evolve folks.
Stop worrying about how other people live their lives,
or is your life so empty and void.
You know the expression, " thou dost protest too much ? "
Furthermore, those Gay people who have been
allegedly "CONVERTED" are kidding themselves.
Just ask them who they'd prefer spending eternity on a
deserted island with ?
They can pick one or the other, a man or woman,
say Denzel Washington or Hally Berry ?
nightdragon - go back under your pervert rock....loser.
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Are you serious? Do you have any idea of how many gay bashings have occurred in this country? It may not be government sanctioned like it is in Iraq and we are slooooooooooooooooooooooowly becoming more tolerant of gays here, but violence,bullying and discrimination still occur. Don't try to minimalize it. Just because it's horrible in Iraq, doesn't mean it's easy here.
its always a race to the bottom with you people, isn't it? the goal isn't supposed to be merely not being the worst.
Thank you, Parvez, for this update. We must never forget how much violence and injustice gay people all around the world must face, especially in anarchic places like Iraq. We are told that Iraq is moving forward, but no nation where people are tortured and murdered regularly, purely on the basis of their sexual orientation, will ever truly advance.
PS. Loved your film!
This is another reason why our military folks should abide by 'don't ask, don't tell'. All we need is for enemy combatants to locate, capture, and kill our troops because they are gay and proud. (Wow, didn't know I had that sort of controversial hate-baiting side to me...)
That's the most ridiculous argument for don't ask, don't tell, I have ever heard. Enemy Combatants locate, capture, and kill our troops because they are American. They wouldn't kill any more if they thought they were gay. Besides, do you think if a man were openly gay in the US military that this would be shared with our enemies, or are you picturing gays in the military walking around in 6" stilettos wearing feather boas?
interesting mental image i must say
repeal DADT now! Its fools like you who supported the criminal Bush Cheney administration. If I had my way, I would drive Bush & Cheny into the middle of Sadr city and leave them there alone for the militants...
"For my film A Jihad for Love, in 2006 I interviewed young Iraqi homosexual men living in Baghdad. They talked furtively and longed to go back to the time of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, when "people like me" could be free."
What a sad thing to have to read. This is not the impact that US actions in Iraq should have.
What a sad think to long to again be under the rule of a man who killed over 1 million of his own subjects. I think the subjects of your interview need to rethink their position.
I long for the days of Saddam..... you misinformed right wing wacko
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Bush's gods gift of freedom at work. Everywhere we go with supposedly high intentions, things get worse. Gotta keep the military/industrial machine humming.
Worse than Hussein killing over 1 million of his own people, regardless of their sexual orientation? I think not.
Hussein kept the country together - Bush lost it to the Islamic fundies....you choose??
So this is the democratic Iraq that thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars have given the world. Excellent. So proud to have contributed tax dollars to this disgusting spectacle. Let freedom ring.
typical of Repubs...they spend, destroy, lie, cheat and basically sell our freedoms away.... think about that when you want to vote for a criminal party like the GOP
This is an almost guaranteed result historically. You go in, kill the leaders, and occupy the country for a while. After you leave, there is a power vacuum and typically civil war, powerful warlords fighting one another, etc.
This is exactly why George Bush Sr. was so emphatically opposed to occupying Iraq - he actually read a bit of history and was pretty savvy politically (although I don't agree with his politics). George W. on the other hand didn't like "book learnin" and wanted to outdo his much smarter father, going so far as to "acquire" false documents to justify his ego trip.
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It took all my courage to read this entire article. I am heartbroken for this entire group of men in Iraq. Does the entire middle east encourage these acts? The complete horror of inflicting pain on another is barbaric. We all deserve the right to be who we are. Period.
Great point - where do YOU feel you get those rights from? How do you claim those rights from someone with a gun pointed at your head or a knife held to your throat?
I hope that anyone who thinks being gay is a choice reads this article and changes their mind.
Who would choose to live this way and to face this kind of persecution? if it was so easy to change, wouldn't they?
As a 54yr gay man, I can vividly remember the terror of my teenage years - no one would choose to be gay - my constant obsession with suicide as a teenager as the only way the I thought I could deal with my sexuality, and I think those thoughts are common amongst gay teenagers. The past 40 yrs the gay movement has moved light years ahead, but still today when I hear a 'joking' gay slur, I again feel the terror of being that frighten 14 yr old boy. Those poor men in Iraq, and other Arab countries, I pray for their safety.
Man, this post makes me feel the reality of that situation. It must be truly terrifying right now. My thoughts and prayers are with those people too.
I am 57 and share the thoughts of canuckguy. I must say, however, that even in the late sixties in Denver where I grew up, lots of guys stood up for me when jocks were trying to pick a fight. My experience doesn't come close to these poor men in Iraq. America does still need to give equal rights to LBGT people - I had to move to Holland a long time ago because I couldn't (still can't) sponsor my Dutch partner, for example.
This is odd. Because as I knew Iraq. Men held hands together because it was originally taboo to do so with a woman in public. This sounds like Iraqis are taking cues to what Americans are thinking of taboo.
Men also in that country kiss each other in the cheek. I mean, these are customs that their culture impose on them. So definitely you have to wonder where the line is drawn from being flamboyant.
Also on much more in depth look. It is frowned upon to take a womans virginity without being married. So Iraqi men have to rely on each other for sexual gratification. Am I mis-informed about this? I mean I was there for about a year and a few months so I learned such things from the people around me.
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Men holding hands and kissing on the cheeks isn't considered gay. Try telling a mafia don that he's acting gay for kissing someone on the cheek - it's quite common in different cultures. Religious fundamentalists make up a small but extremely rabid part of Iraqi society and are powerful because they will do anything to force others to follow their path. Religious fundamentalists are dangerous the world because they usually support hatred and intolerance and their extreme beliefs can be used to support violence and war.
This article has made me sad all day, the entire world needs to read this.
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I am just getting sick of hearing about yet another story about persecution over there. Crimey, if you got a bunch of straight, same looking, same height, same religion, same, same, together over there, they would find some way to find fault with each other.
Realize we are blogging and so are boisterous or voiceterous about different subjects, but, sheesh, they are complaining, annoyed and constantly bickering. What kind of people are these people who seem to hate everyone?
Reminds me of X-Men. Hated for being not part of the "norm" This is too sad.
Why is this story such a huge deal? Arab barbarism isn't limited to gay people. Even though most Arab men can't keep their hands off each other.
We have long since given up on the idea of Iraq ever becoming a model liberal democracy like Denmark or Switzerland. There is nothing in its history that would ever become one. In fact, it may not hold together as a country at all.
My expectations are minimal at this point. About the best we can hope for is that whatever is left of the place after we're gone won't be used as a base to attack us. Except for the Kurdish reason, it's a disaster.
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