Amnesty International: Iraq must protect civilians at risk of deadly violence

27 April 2010

Amnesty International on Tuesday called on the Iraqi authorities to urgently step up the protection of civilians amid the recent surge of deadly violence in the country.

A new Amnesty International report, Iraq: Civilians Under Fire, documents how hundreds of civilians are being killed or injured each month.

Many are specifically targeted by armed groups because of their religious, ethnic or sexual identity or because they speak out against human rights abuses.

Ongoing uncertainty over when a new Iraqi government will be formed has led to a recent spike in attacks, with more than 100 civilian deaths in the first week of April alone.

"Iraqis are still living in a climate of fear, seven years after the US-led invasion. The Iraqi authorities could do much more to keep them safe, but over and over they are failing to help the most vulnerable in society," said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme.

Amnesty International urged the authorities to do more to protect those who are particularly at risk and bring those responsible for violent crimes to justice, without recourse to the death penalty.

While Iraqi security forces, foreign troops or family members are responsible for some human rights abuses, most killings of civilians are carried out by armed groups, including al-Qa'ida in Iraq. The organization remains a significant presence in the country despite the recent reported deaths of three senior leaders.

Human rights defenders, journalists and political activists are among those who have been killed or maimed in Iraq because of their work.

Omar Ibrahim Al-Jabouri, the head of public relations at Rasheed TV station, only just escaped with his life in an attack on 13 April 2010. He lost his legs after being caught in an explosion of a bomb attached to his vehicle as he was driving to his office in Baghdad.

Religious and ethnic minorities also continue to be targeted for attack, with at least eight Christians killed in Mosul in February 2010 in apparent sectarian attacks.

Christian students Zia Toma, 22, and Ramsin Shmael, 21, were stopped by unidentified gunmen on 17 February 2010 at a bus stop in Mosul who demanded to see their identity cards. When the gunmen opened fire, Toma was killed and Shmael was injured but survived.

Women and girls are particularly at risk of violence from both armed groups and their relatives. Few men are known to have been convicted of rape in Iraq. Women frequently suffer at the hands of relatives, in so-called honour crimes, if their behaviour is seen to go against traditional moral codes, for instance by refusing to marry men who have been selected for them. Activists have also been targeted for speaking out in favour of women's rights.

Members of the gay community in Iraq, where homosexuality is not tolerated, live under constant threat of violence, with some Muslim clerics urging their followers to attack suspected homosexuals.

Authorities frequently fail to carry out thorough and impartial investigations into attacks on civilians, arrest suspects or bring perpetrators to justice. In some cases, they are even accused of being implicated in violent attacks.

As a result of the ongoing insecurity, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including a disproportionately high number of minority communities, have been forced to flee their homes. Internally displaced people and refugees are even more vulnerable to violence, as well as economic hardship.

Amnesty International called on the Iraqi authorities to immediately introduce measures to improve the safety of civilians. They should consult with members of at-risk groups to see how best they can protect them.

In the meantime, the organization said the authorities must begin properly investigating attacks on civilians and to hold perpetrators, whoever they are, responsible for their crimes in accordance with international law. They should immediately disarm all militias and end the identification of religious affiliation on identity cards.

All armed groups in Iraq should immediately end human rights abuses, including attacks against civilians, abductions and torture.

Amnesty International also called for an end to all forcible returns of refugees to Iraq as long as the country remains unstable. Several European governments are forcibly returning people to Iraq – including to the most dangerous parts of the country – in direct violation of guidelines set out by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Amnesty International has spoken to several Iraqis who were forcibly returned by the Netherlands government on 30 March 2010. Among the 35 refugees was a 22-year-old Shi'a Turkoman man from Tal Afar, a city north of Mosul, where hundreds of civilians have been killed in sectarian or other politically motivated violence in recent years, and where the violence continues unabated. As of mid-April, he remained stranded in Baghdad.

"The continuing uncertainty as to when a new government will be formed following last month's election could well contribute to a further increase of violent incidents of which civilians are the main victims. The uncertainty is threatening to make a bad situation even worse. Both the Iraqi authorities and the international community must act now to prevent more unnecessary deaths," said Malcolm Smart.

Iraq: Civilians under fire

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• Arabic PDF

Read the report's section 'attacks on gay men'

Outrage as UK government refuses to take action on asylum application by Iraqi gay leader

Press statement
24 March 2010

 

For immediate use

Outrage as UK government refuses to take action on asylum application by Iraqi gay leader

Action demanded of Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson

Foreign Office opposition to persecution undermined by Home Office actions

The UK government through its Border Agency has refused to give priority to an application for asylum by the leader of Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hili, in exile in London. The application has been outstanding for nearly three years and while it is outstanding, he cannot travel.

This decision directly impacts on harshly persecuted Iraqi lesbians and gays through the reduced ability of their sole visible leader to raise their profile internationally.

US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin spoke last month of their concerns for LGBT both in Iraq and as refugees, in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-signed by 64 other Congresspeople.

Numerous human rights organisations and journalists have documented the pogrom against lesbians and gays in Iraq. Human Rights Watch has described a "campaign of torture and murder". Iraqi LGBT estimates that over 700 LGBT have been assassinated over the past few years. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has advised 'favourable consideration' for asylum claims because of the situation.

Hili has received many requests to speak about the situation in Iraq internationally, including from US-based groups such as the Gay Liberation Network and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign, which he has been unable to pursue.

 

His solicitor, Barry O'Leary, wrote to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in August 2009 that: "he desperately wishes to do this [travel] in order to further the aims of his organisation, that is, supporting lesbians and gay men in Iraq and bringing the world's attention to their plight."

Six months after his review application, the UKBA told O'Leary that:

• the assistance which Hili has given to the Foreign Office "does not count"
• the fatwa against him does not mean that Hili "falls within the classification of clear and immediate vulnerability"
• that the delay in deciding Hili's asylum case (since July 2007) "is not in itself an exceptional circumstance"
• his case is not "compelling"

O'Leary said: "I have made UKBA aware of the detriment the nearly three year delay is having on the work of Iraqi LGBT. I have also stressed that this will be a straightforward matter given Mr Hili’s very high profile and the documented risks to his life. Nevertheless they decided to leave him in the queue for a decision. This can only harm LGBT individuals in Iraq."

As the public leader of the only group representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people both in Iraq as well as the diaspora, Hili has received a fatwa from inside Iraq as well as numerous threats in London which have forced him to move. He is under the protection of the Metropolitan Police.

Hili said: "It is extremely distressing that the British government is refusing to allow me to take up the many offers to speak on behalf of the lesbians and gays in our organisation. I have been the only person who has willingly identified themselves as a gay Iraqi and this has made me a target. But the British government doesn't take this seriously."

"Why are they undermining the work of our group? Why does the Foreign Office say it supports lesbians and gays around the world yet the Home Office does this to me,” he asks?

Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant wrote in his blog on Feb. 24: "I know some people dismiss LGBT rights as something of a sideshow in international relations, but I am proud to say that the FCO has argued for a decade that human rights are a seamless garment."

The Foreign Office Human Rights Report for 2009 specifically names Iraqi LGBT over other NGOs as a key source of information. Hili has met with them numerous times. The report quotes Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell condemming persecution of LGBT in Iraq.

Yet the same government through the Home Office effectively aids that persecution through the failure of recognition to Iraqi LGBT's leader.

Hili's supporters said that they would be taking the campaign to get his case decided - so Iraqi lesbians and gays can have a voice in the world - to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

The internationally renowned human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has said of Hili:

"It was Ali Hili of Iraqi LGBT who first alerted the world to the organised killing of LGBT people in Iraq - way back in 2005. For a long time, he was a lone voice."

"Soon afterwards, he exposed the death fatwa against LGBT people issued by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

"Mr Hili was also the person who set up the 'underground railroad' and safe houses inside Iraq, to give refuge to LGBT people on the run from Islamist death squads and to provide escape routes to neighbouring countries - which saved the lives of many Iraqi LGBTs.

"While I would not wish to detract one iota from the contributions of others, it is important to show due generosity and humility by acknowledging that it was Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT who first bought this issue to public consciousness. They deserve our gratitude."

Paul Canning, Editor of LGBT Asylum News and a Hili supporter, said: "If Ali is not deserving of expediency in decision making I don't know who is."

"The government should be 100% behind the work of Iraqi LGBT, indeed they are quite willing to accept their help and advice at the Foreign Office. But they treat Ali and, through him Iraqi lesbians and gays, like dirt who don't deserve our protection and support. It is completely outrageous."

 

Iraqi LGBT have set up a campaign web page on their website, see http://bit.ly/alihili

ENDS

For further information and requests for interviews and photographs contact:
gayasylumuk@gmail.com

For comment on the legal issues contact:

Barry O'Leary
Wesley Gryk Solicitors

Notes:

Iraqi LGBT is a representative organisation for over 100 people both inside Iraq and in the diaspora. It runs safe houses in Iraq and assists people to flee as well as supporting them in neighboring countries.

• Queerty: Interview with Ali Hili
• Iraqi LGBT website
  

• Foreign Office: Annual Report on Human Rights
• Human Rights Watch: Iraq: Stop Killings for Homosexual Conduct
• Peter Tatchell: Iraq - Ayatolla Sistani says death to gays
• LGBT Asylum News: Ministers Must Halt Deportation Of Gay Iraqi
• BBC: Saddam's rule 'better' for gay Iraqis
• LGBT Asylum News: Save LGBT refugees, 44 US congresspeople urge Hillary Clinton
• LGBT Asylum News: I'm Gay and Iraqi: Please Help Me!

• Iraqi LGBT annual report

USA TODAY - Militias target some Iraqis for being gay

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-07-28-gays-in-iraq_N.htm

By Paul Wiseman and Nadeem Majeed, USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — The young man turns to the camera and pleads with his tormentors.
"I'm not a terrorist," he tells the Iraqi police who surround him. "I want you to know I am different. But I am not a terrorist."

To some fundamentalist Iraqi Muslims, Ahmed Sadoun Saleh was worse than a terrorist.
He was gay. He wore his hair long and took female hormones to grow breasts. Amused by his appearance, Iraqi police officers stopped him in December at a checkpoint in a southern Baghdad neighborhood dominated by radical Shiite militias. They groped Saleh and ridiculed him.

The assault was captured on video and circulated on cellphones throughout Baghdad, says Ali Hili, founder of London-based Iraqi LGBT, a group dedicated to protecting Iraq's gays and lesbians. Shortly after the video was made public, Hili says Saleh contacted him, fearing for his life, and asked for his help to flee Iraq.

"Unfortunately, it was too late," Hili says. Saleh turned up dead two months later, he says.
At least 82 gay men have been killed in Iraq since December, according to Iraqi LGBT. The violence has raised questions about the Iraqi government's ability to protect a diverse range of vulnerable minority groups that also includes Christians and Kurds, especially following the

withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities last month.

Mithal al-Alusi, a secular, liberal Sunni legislator, is among those who blame the killings on armed militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army militia.

By targeting one of the most vulnerable groups in a conservative Muslim society — people whose sexual orientation is banned by Iraqi law — the militias essentially are serving notice that they remain powerful despite the U.S. and Iraqi militaries' efforts to curtail them, al-Alusi says.
The militants "want to educate the society to accept killers on the street," al-Alusi says in an interview. "Why did Hitler start with gays? They are weak. They have no political cover. They have no legal cover."

The attacks have terrified a gay community that, for a brief time after the U.S. troop surge in 2007-08, tentatively enjoyed greater freedom and security.

"I am worried about my life," says a middle-age gay man in Baghdad who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Hassan. He declined to be identified by his real name because the recent violence has made him fear for his life. "I don't know what to do," he says.

Hili and other gay rights activists believe the killers operate with the complicity and sometimes the direct involvement of Iraqi security forces.

As part of a drive to stop the sectarian violence that peaked in Iraq in 2006-07, those forces have taken into their ranks numerous former militia members from the Mahdi Army (loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) and the pro-Iranian Badr Brigade.

"The Ministry of Interior in Iraq is behind this campaign of terror," Hili says in an e-mail.He says witnesses have told him that police harass and beat suspected gays at checkpoints and sometimes turn them over to militias for execution.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf disputes such allegations. He says the ministry has assigned a special bureau to investigate the killings of gays; he says he knows of six gays who had been executed as of May.

Homosexuality, Khalaf says, is against the law and "is rejected by the customs of our society." He adds, however, that offenders should be handled by the courts, not dispatched by vigilante groups.

The killers aren't just executing their gay victims. They are "mutilating their bodies and torturing them," says fundamentalist Sunni cleric Sheik Mohammed al-Ghreri, who has criticized the violence.

Hili says the militias have come up with a particularly cruel way to inflict pain: sealing victims' anuses with glue, then force-feeding them laxatives. Hili says he has spoken to several victims who survived the ordeal.

'You can just be crushed'

Besides targeting gays, Sadr City militias also are harassing and sometimes killing straight young men who violate fundamentalist fashion and decorum by wearing low-riding pants and other Western-style clothing, slicking back their hair or making it spiky, hanging out in cafes or pool halls or flirting with girls, says human rights activist Mohammed Jasim, 28.

"The campaign is against gays and anybody who looks gay" in the eyes of militiamen indoctrinated to believe immodest dress is an affront to God, Jasim says.

"Young people felt their city had been liberated," says Jasim's friend Wisam Mizban, 32.
"They thought they could wear what they wanted. The militias felt threatened and started killing them. They are doing their crimes under the cover of the government. … Most young people want a civilized life. The militias and the government are putting pressure on them again."

The campaign has had a chilling effect on Baghdad's nightlife.

Entrepreneur Ali al-Ali opened the Shisha coffee shop in an upstairs storefront overlooking a bustling street in the upscale Karrada neighborhood. The place quickly became a hangout for young gay men, who'd sit and talk and drink lattes, and smoke flavored tobacco from the water pipes that gave the cafe its name.

But as the militias started killing gay men, Ali discouraged gays from congregating at his cafe. "If (militias) see gays coming here, maybe they will target me outside Karrada," al-Ali says.
His sentiments were echoed by Hussam Abdullah, whose tea shop also used to be a hangout for gay men — until militias warned Abdullah there would be trouble if he didn't send them away. So he did.

The militias usually send out warnings before they attack. Posters go up in Sadr City listing the offenders — gay and flashy straight men — by name and neighborhood. "If you don't give up what you are doing," said a recent one seen by a USA TODAY reporter, "death will be your fate. And this warning will come true, and the punishment will be worse and worse."

The poster referred to the offenders as "puppies," the fundamentalist epithet for gays here. "In Arabic culture, if you want to insult someone you call them a dog," human rights activist Yanar Mohammed says. "If you're a small dog, you can just be crushed."

Among those listed was a young man named Allawi Hawar, a local soccer star who incurred the wrath of the militias by wearing his hair long and partying with his friends in Sadr City cafes.
Hawar was playing pool one day last month when two masked men drove up on a motor scooter. One climbed off and made his way inside the cafe, clutching a pistol.

"We have something to deal with," he announced to startled patrons, according to witness Emad Saad, 25.

The gunman grabbed Hawar and dragged him outside. Then he shot the young athlete in the leg. After Hawar crumpled to the ground, bleeding, the gunman shot him again and killed him, Saad says.

The militiamen pick their targets by entering cafes and looking for men who appear feminine or too showy, Saad says. Then they ask around to get the offenders' names, and later put them on the death lists distributed around town.

Saad himself likes to wear Western jeans and slicked-back hair. He has taken to carrying a Glock pistol, awaiting his showdown with the militias.

"Some people are afraid, but I am not," he says. "I have done nothing wrong."
The Sadr City warning posters do not appear to be the work of educated theologians. A recent one was filled with Arabic misspellings, including a faulty rendering of "compassionate" — part of one of the 99 names for God.

But Ali Hili, the London activist, and others believe high-level clerics have ordered the killings. Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani several years ago decreed that the punishment for homosexuality is death "if it is proven before the religious judge."

An Iraqi TV channel, Alsumaria, reported that Sunni cleric al-Ghreri has called for the execution of gays. Al-Ghreri denies issuing such a statement, but concedes that some "stubborn" clerics might support the death penalty for gays.

He says homosexuality is "abnormal" and that gays should know that "freedom has limits." First, he says, gays should be warned to change their offensive behavior.
If that fails, he says, they should be jailed. If detentions don't work, they should endure 100 lashes for engaging in gay sex. And if four separate lashings fail and if witnesses testify against the suspects, he says, then they should be executed.

Exactly what unleashed the recent wave of violence is unclear.

Some — including Hassan, the middle-age gay man — trace the terror to a birthday party around New Year's at a cafe on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad.

The party attracted about 20 gay men who cut loose on the dance floor, celebrating what they thought was their freedom in a more peaceful, stable Iraq. A video of the revelry was entitled Gay Scandal and distributed around the city.

"This was the start of it," Hassan says. "It made the ministry people crazy."
In London, activist Hili calls the party "a foolish action from members of our community who let their guard down."

However, he doesn't believe the party "was the spark that ignited all the flames."
Hili says the violence started earlier, with clerical fatwas against gays and police raids in December in Najaf, Karbala and Kut.

The search for safety

Unable to trust the authorities — and in some cases shunned by their own families — many Iraqi gays have gone into hiding. Hassan and some gay friends say they had found refuge in a house in Karrada. But as the threat against them increased, they became afraid the police would find them. So they scattered.

Hassan says he sometimes stays at home with his brothers — their parents are dead — but he's afraid even of them, afraid they will kill him because he has brought shame to the family.
He says he wanted to move in with his sister, who lives in Abu Dhabi. She turned him away, saying she didn't want her children to know they have a gay uncle.
Unwilling to trust the police, Iraqi LGBT has set up its own safe houses for gays in Iraq. The group has struggled to raise money and had to close three safe houses in the past couple of months, leaving just one open.

Hili says five safe houses are needed, each of them housing 10 to 12 gay refugees. Rent for a 2,150-square-foot safe house is usually $600 a month. Yet other expenses pile up: security guards, food, fuel, medical bills, pots and pans, bedding.

"We desperately need to add more because we have so many urgent cases," Hili says. "We receive requests for shelter every day, but are not able to help."

Things were better for gays, Hassan says, under the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein.
"In the Saddam era, it wasn't like this," he says. Saddam's security forces, offended by Hassan's openly gay lifestyle, once arrested him and hauled him to court. The judge let him go, ruling that he had done nothing wrong.

"Now, you don't know who to be afraid of," he says. "Forget about freedom or democracy. We just want our safety."

Iraq’s Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder

BAGHDAD — The relative freedom of a newly democratic Iraq and the recent improvement in security have allowed a gay subculture to flourish here. The response has been swift and deadly.

In the past two months, the bodies of as many as 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City, the police and friends of the dead say. Most have been shot, some multiple times. Several have been found with the word “pervert” in Arabic on notes attached to their bodies, the police said.

“Three of my closest friends have been killed during the past two weeks alone,” said Basim, 23, a hairdresser. “They had been planning to go to a cafe away from Sadr City because we don’t feel safe here, but they killed them on the way. I had planned to go with them, but fortunately I didn’t.”
Basim, who preferred to be called “Basima” — the feminine version of his name — wears his hair long for Iraq. It falls to just below the ear. His ears are pierced, uncommon for Iraqi males. White makeup covers his face, a popular look for gay men in Sadr City who say they prefer light skin.
Though risky, his look is one result of the overall calm here that has allowed Iraqis to enjoy freedoms unthinkable two years ago: A growing number of women walk the streets unveiled, a few even daring to wear dresses above the knee. Families gather in parks for cookouts, and more people have begun to venture out at night.

But that has not changed the reality that Iraq remains religious, conservative — and still violent. The killers, the police say, are not just Shiite death squads, but also tribal and family members shamed by their gay relatives. (And the recent spate of violence has seemed aimed at more openly gay men, rather than homosexuality generally.)

Clerics in Sadr City have urged followers to help root out homosexuality in Iraqi society, and the police have begun their own crackdown on gay men.
“Homosexuality is against the law,” said Lt. Muthana Shaad, at a police station in the Karada district, a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. “And it’s disgusting.”

For the past four months, he said, officers have been engaged in a “campaign to clean up the streets and get the beggars and homosexuals off them.”

Gay men, he said, can be arrested only if they are seen engaging in sex, but the police try to drive them away. “These people, we make sure they can’t get together in a coffee shop or walk together in the street — we make them break up,” he said.

Gay men and lesbians in Iraq have long been among the targets of both Shiite and Sunni death squads, but their murders have been overshadowed by the hundreds of overall weekly casualties during the height of sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007.

In 2005, the country’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a religious decree that said gay men and lesbians should be “punished, in fact, killed.” He added, “The people should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.” The language has since been removed from his Web site.

In recent months, groups of gay men have been taking greater chances, gathering in cafes and other public places in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf and other cities. On a recent night in Sadr City, several, their hair parted down the middle, talked as they quietly sipped tea at a garishly lighted cafe, oblivious to the stares of passers-by.

Basim, who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety, said he knew at least 20 young men from Sadr City’s large but hidden gay community who had disappeared during the past two months. He said he had learned later that each was found dead. After three of his friends were killed, he stayed inside his house for a week. Recently he has begun to go out again.

“I can’t stay at home all day,” he said. “I need to see my friends.”
Publicly, the Iraqi police have acknowledged only the deaths of six gay men in the neighborhood. But privately, police officials say the figure is far higher.

The chief of a Sadr City police station, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to reporters, said family members had probably committed most of the Sadr City killings. He played down the role of death squads that had once been associated with the Mahdi Army, the militia that controlled Sadr City until American and Iraqi forces dislodged them last spring.

“Our investigation has found that these incidents are being committed by relatives of the gays — not just because of the militias,” he said. “They are killing them because it is a shame on the family.”

He said families typically refused to cooperate with the investigation or even to claim the bodies. No arrests have been made in the killings.
At the same time, though, clerics associated with Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric with significant influence in Sadr City, have devoted a portion of Friday Prayer services to inveighing against homosexuality.

“The community should be purified from such delinquent behavior like stealing, lying and the effeminacy phenomenon among men,” Sheik Jassem al-Mutairi said during his sermon last Friday. Homosexuality, he said, was “far from manhood and honesty.”

Abu Muhaned al-Diraji, a Sadrist official in Sadr City, said the clerics were in no way encouraging people to kill gay men.

“All we are doing is giving advice to people to take care of their sons,” Mr. Diraji said. He acknowledged, however, that some of the killing had been committed by members of “special groups,” or death squads.

“In general, it is the families that are killing the gay son, but I know that there are gunmen involved in this, too,” he said. “But we disavow anybody committing this kind of crime and we encourage the people to follow the law.”

In addition to the killings, a Sadr City cafe frequented by gay men recently burned down under mysterious circumstances.

Some young gay men in Sadr City have become nihilistic about the ever present threat.

“I don’t care about the militias anymore, because they’re going to kill me anyway — today, tomorrow or the day after,” said a man named Sa’ad, who has been taking estrogen and has developed small breasts. “I hate my community and my relatives. If they had their way, the result would be one gunshot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/middleeast/08gay.html?hp

Friends can send Donations to IRAQI LGBT: The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi's facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world. Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighbouring countries.

Donate to our PayPal Account : iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk .Or make cheque payable to (IRAQI LGBT) send it to our address:Iraqi Lgbt22 Notting Hill GateUnit 111London,W11 3JEUnited Kingdom

Kurdish doctor jailed for writing about homosexual sex in Iraq.

A leading press freedom organisation has called for the release from prison of a doctor sentenced to six months by a Kurdish judge for writing an medical article about sodomy.

Adel Hussein was convicted of offending public decency with his article in newspaper Hawlati and sentenced on November 24th in the city of Arbil, the capital of Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

Reporters Without Borders said:
"Sexual practices are part of the individual freedoms that a democratic state is supposed to promote and protect.

"Furthermore, Hussein did not defend homosexuality. He limited himself to describing a form of behaviour from a scientific viewpoint.

"We are astonished to learn that a press case has been tried under the criminal code.

"What was the point of adopting - and then liberalising - a press code in Iraq north region if people who contribute to the news media are still be tried under more repressive laws?"

RWB said Dr Hussein, a member of the Union of Kurdish Journalists and local TV presenter, was prosecuted as a result of a complaint brought by the city’s public prosecutor over a scientific article published in April 2007 that detailed the physical effects of sodomy.

He was fined 125,000 dinars (£72) in addition to his jail term.

The predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq is autonomous and has its own unicameral parliament.

In the rest of Iraq the deteriorating situation for gay and lesbian people has been documented by human rights groups.

A UN report in 2007 highlighted attacks on gays by militants and religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed.

"Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, which declared that gays and lesbians should be 'killed in the worst, most severe way possible," said Alli HIli of Iraqi LGBT.

"Since then, LGBT people have been specifically targeted by the Madhi Army, the militia of fundamentalist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as by the Badr organisation and other Shia death squads."

Sexual cleansing in Iraq

Islamist death squads are hunting down gay Iraqis and summarily executing them

WATCH the video link below – and weep
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uB7TcPGXlHY

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – 25 September 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/25/iraq.humanrights

STOP PRESS: This morning, after this article was published, news came from Iraq that the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad, Bashar, aged 27, has been assassinated in a barber shop. Militias burst in and sprayed his body with bullets.

The so-called improved security situation in Iraq is not benefiting all Iraqis, especially not gay ones. Islamist death squads are engaged in a homophobic
killing spree, with the active encouragement of leading Muslim clerics, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, as Newsweek recently revealed.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/155656

One of these clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Shia Islam, issued a fatwa urging the killing of lesbians and gays in the “worst, most severe way possible.”

http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18202189&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

The short film, Queer Fear - Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq, produced by David Grey for Village Film, documents the tragic fates of a several individual gay Iraqis. You can view it here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uB7TcPGXlHY

Watch and weep. A truly poignant and moving revelation about the terrorisation and murder of Iraqi lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Since this film was made, the killings have continued and, many say, got worse.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/gay.iraqis/index.html

For gay Iraqis there is little evidence of the transition to democracy. They don’t experience any new-found respect human rights. Life for them is even worse than under the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

It is a death sentence in today’s “liberated” Iraq to love a person of the same-sex, or for a woman to have sex outside of marriage, or for a Muslim to give up his / her faith or embrace another religion.

The reality on the ground is that theocracy is taking hold of the country, including in Basra, which was abandoned by the British military. In place of foreign occupation, the city’s inhabitants now endure the terror of fundamentalist militias and death squads. Those who are deemed insufficiently devout and pure are liable to be assassinated.

The death squads of the Badr Brigades and the Madhi Army are
targeting gays and lesbians, according to UN reports, in a systematic campaign of sexual cleansing. They proudly boast of their success, claiming that they have already exterminated all “perverts and sodomites” in many of the major cities.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/05/world/fg-iraqgay5
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008100&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008200&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18605093&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

You can view photos of a few of the LGBT victims of these summary executions here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72057594087304767/

My friends in Iraq have relayed to me the tragic story of five gay activists, who belonged to the underground movement gay rights movement, Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

Eye-witnesses confirm that they saw the men being led out of a house at gun-point by officers in police uniform. Yes, Iraqi police! Nothing has been heard of the five victims since then. In all probability, they have been executed by the police - or by Islamist death squads who have infiltrated the Iraqi police and who are using their uniforms to carry out so-called honour killings of gay people, unchaste women and many others.

The arrested and disappeared men were Amjad 27, Rafid 29, Hassan 24, Ayman 19 and Ali 21. As members of Iraq’s covert gay rights movement, for the previous few months they had been documenting the killing of lesbians and gays, relaying details of the murders to the outside world, and providing safe houses and support to other gay people fleeing the death squads.

Their abduction is just one of many outrages by anti-gay death squads. lslamist killers burst into the home of two lesbians in city of Najaf. They shot them dead, slashed their throats, and also murdered a young child who the women had rescued from the sex trade. The two women, both in their mid-30s, were members of Iraqi LGBT. They were providing a safe house for gay men on the run from death squads. By sheer luck, none of the men who were being given shelter in the house were at home when the assassins struck. They have since fled to Baghdad and are hiding in an Iraqi LGBT safe house there.

Large parts of Iraq are now under the de facto control of the militias and their death squad units. They enforce a harsh interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for what they denounce as “crimes against Islam.” These “crimes” include listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.

Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Bush and Brown-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s governing coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship. The allied occupation of Iraq is bad enough. But if the Madhi or Badr militias gain in influence and strength, as seems likely in the long-term, it could result in a reign of religious terror many times worse.

Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant. I campaigned against his blood-stained misrule for nearly 30 years. But while Saddam was President, there was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated in their homes and in the street by religious fanatics.

http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008362&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of lesbians and gays is much worse.
http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-gays-in-iraq-life-of-constant-fear.html

Even children suspected of being gay are abducted and later found shot in the head.
http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17008362&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=8

Lesbian and gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police, since the police are heavily infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. The death squads can kill with impunity. Pro-fundamentalist ministers in the Iraqi government are turning a blind eye to the killings, and helping to protect the killers. Some “liberation”.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. Since they don’t yet have a bank account, they request that cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More information on Iraqi LGBT or to make a donation by PayPal

Three Iraq safe houses forced to close

No funds to pay rent or utility bills

30 gay people left to fend for themselves


London and Baghdad – 6 November 2007


Three out of five gay safe houses in Iraq are closing down, due to a lack of funds to pay their rent and utility bills.

The refuges were set up two years ago, to provide a place of safety for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (lgbt) Iraqis who have fled homophobic threats and attempts to kill them by religious fundamentalists and death squads.

“Iraqi lgbt has made a huge effort to keep all of its five safe houses running, to provide refuge for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iraqis who have fled homophobic violence and threats to kill them,” said Ali Hili, founder and coordinator of the human rights group, Iraqi lgbt.

“Many of the people we helped have been targeted by the Iraqi police and by Shia militia and other fundamentalist factions.

“Because of a lack of funds, three safe houses have had to close their doors. This decision will break a lot of hearts, but we have no other choice. We don’t have the financial support to sustain these refuges.

“Over 30 gay residents who we cared for in these three safe houses now have to take their chances in a country where religious militia regularly seek out gays and execute them.

“Several months ago, two lesbians working with Iraqi lgbt were assassinated in the safe house they were running in Najaf, along with a young boy the women had rescued from the sex industry.

“We feel deserted by the international gay community. Few people seem to care about our fate.

“Many brave lgbt Iraqis assisted our efforts. We would like to acknowledge their exceptional commitment.

“Sabah, Gada, Sana and Mona are four lesbians who dedicated their time and energy to provide food, cleaning and support to people in the safe houses in their area. We’d also like to thank Hasan , Safa , Jawad, Laith , Gasaq and Rami,” said Mr Hilli.

“The world has let us down so badly,” said Sabah, a 29 year old lesbian, who worked as a carer and ran a safe house in the south of Iraq.

“Nowadays, we don’t dare be seen in the neighbourhoods where we used to live. It is too dangerous for anyone known to be gay or to have had a homosexual past,” said Safa, a gay man in the city of Ammara, where he has been hiding for the last eight months from the police and Shia death squads. Safa fled his hometown of Najaf because he was known to be gay and feared assassination.

“Iraqi lgbt is doing amazing, heroic work,” said Peter Tatchell of the UK-based lgbt organisation, OutRage!

“It’s members inside Iraq are taking huge personal risks to protect the victims of homophobic persecution. Their efforts are truly inspirational. I urge the international lgbt community to rally round and raise the funds needed to sustain the remaining two safe houses. Please give generously,” he urged.

Meanwhile, Iraqi lgbt blames the western invasion and occupation of their country for unleashing religious fanaticism and causing the current homophobic killing spree:

“Much of the world failed to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and to prevent what has turned out to be the worst western intervention catastrophe in modern history,” added Mr Hili.

“The Iraqi gay community feels badly let down in our moment of need.

“Are gay people in the United States, Britain and Australia aware of what their governments have done to our country? Their armies invaded and occupied our land, destroyed the infrastructure of government, and created the chaos and lawlessness that has allowed religious fundamentalism to flourish and to terrorise woman and gay people.”

“Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, which declared that gays and lesbians should be ‘killed in the worst, most severe way possible.’

“Since then, lgbt people have been specifically targeted by the Madhi Army, the militia of fundamentalist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as by the Badr organisation and other Shia death squads. Badr is the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is one of the leading political forces in Baghdad’s western-backed ruling coalition,” said Mr Hili

Can you make a donation to help Iraqi lgbt sustain its magnificent efforts?

The UK-based gay human 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 have its own 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 activists in Baghdad.

More information:


Ali Hili 079 819 594 53 (from abroad +44 79 819 594 53)

Blog: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Email: iraqilgbt@yahoo.co.uk


Photos of some of the LGBT victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.



END.

Two Members of US Congress Protest Persecution of Gay Iraqis

Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank

Condoleezza Rice Asked to Intervene

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2007

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressman Barney Frank (D- MA) have written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the State Department to investigate reports of violent persecution of homosexual Iraqis by Islamic groups and militias.

The two lawmakers cited a United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's (UNAMI) Human Rights Report issued for the period of November 1 to December 31, 2006, which stated that an environment of “impunity and lawlessness” currently permeating Iraq has invited open and violent campaigns against LGBT Iraqis.

“In 2005, the Iraqi people adopted a Constitution guaranteeing that ‘every individual has the right to enjoy life, security and liberty’.

“Unfortunately, such promises have been particularly eroded for LGBT Iraqis, who must live in constant fear of being targeted for execution.

“We therefore urge you to raise this serious issue with the Iraqi leadership and press them to take immediate action to halt the killings of Iraqi homosexuals,” Baldwin and Frank wrote.

Representatives Baldwin and Frank asked Secretary Rice to raise the issue and express her concerns to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, while urging the Iraqi government to step up its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis and stop these senseless attacks by the militias.

Full text of the letter:

Dear Secretary Rice:

We are writing to express our strong concerns regarding recent reports that Iraqi homosexuals have been systematically persecuted in Iraq under a violent campaign led by Islamic groups and militias. We urge the State Department to investigate such allegations and report its findings as part of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. We also urge you to raise the issue and express your concerns to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, while urging the Iraqi government to step up its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis and stop these senseless attacks by the militias.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq's (UNAMI) Human Rights Report issued for the period of November 1 to December 31, 2006, an environment of "impunity and lawlessness" currently permeating Iraq has invited open and violent campaigns against LGBT Iraqis. According to news reports, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the chief spiritual leader of Iraqi Shia Muslims, issued a "'fatwa,' or religiously-inspired legal pronouncement, in October 2005 calling for death for all gays and lesbians in "the most severe way possible." While the fatwa was eventually removed from Sistani's website last May, it was never revoked, and the decree has led to the deployment of anti-gay death squads by the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Badr Corps. As a result, violence against gay Iraqis surged in 2006.

According to Iraqi LGBT, a London-based human rights group working to support the human rights of gay Iraqis, twenty-six of its members have been killed since 2003, including the murder of two minors - eleven-year-old Ameer and fourteen-year-old Ahmed who were forced into child prostitution--in 2006. In addition, a mass kidnapping of five gay men from the Shaab area of Iraq took place during the first week of December 2006. All are now presumed dead.

In April of this year, Iraqi LGBT documented that eight additional murders took place in 2007, while several other gay activists were arrested and tortured. A report by the Institute for War and Peace (IWPR) also documented that religious courts now exists in Iraq allegedly to try homosexuals, sentencing them to death, and subsequently executing them under the supervision of clerics.

The aforementioned news accounts, coupled with UNAMI and IWPR's reports, present a substantial body of evidence that LGBT Iraqis have been systematically targeted for violence by Islamic clerics and militias. Yet the 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the State Department this March, made no reference to any human rights violations in Iraq based on sexual orientation. We thus urge the State Department to investigate such allegations and incorporate the findings in the annual human rights report.

Furthermore, we urge you to utilize every diplomatic tool available to engage Prime Minister Al-Maliki and President Talabani and call on the Iraqi government to crack down on the systematic prosecution of Iraqi homosexuals. In 2005, the Iraqi people adopted a Constitution guaranteeing that "every individual has the right to enjoy life, security and liberty," (emphasis added). Unfortunately, such promises have been particularly eroded for LGBT Iraqis, who must live in constant fear of being targeted for execution. We therefore urge you to raise this serious issue with the Iraqi leadership and press them to take immediate action to halt the killings of Iraqi homosexuals.

Sincerely,
Tammy BaldwinMember of Congress
Barney FrankMember of Congress

IRAQ - MORE GAY EXECUTIONS

Baghdad refuses to protect gays and denounces UN report

London – 3 April 2007

“Iraqi lesbians and gays continue to be subjected a systematic reign
of terror by Shia death squads. 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,” according to Ali Hili, the coordinator of the human
rights group Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

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.

“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:

“There 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.

“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.

“Khalid, 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.

“Hasan Sabeh, 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. 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. 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. 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 behavior” 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.

Photos of some of these victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.


“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,” said 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.

More information:

Ali Hili 079 819 594 53

Blog: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Photos of some of the LGBT victims are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72157600042494571/

NB: Sorry, we do not have high resolution versions.

For photos of other victims, see:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outrage/sets/72057594087304767/


Peter Tatchell, OutRage! 020 7403 1790

END.

Iraq death squads government sanctioned

Iraqi government ministers collude with the killers of gays

US and UK condemned for refusing asylum to gay Iraqis

London – 19 February 2007

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 17 February 2007.

Mr Hili, a gay refugee from Iraq, is also Middle East Affairs spokesperson for the UK-based LGBT human rights group, OutRage!. He told the conference that some ministers in the US and UK-backed Iraqi government were colluding with death squads responsible for the “sexual cleansing” of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) Iraqis:

“Iraqi LGBTs are at daily risk of execution by the Shia death squads of the Badr and Sadr militias.

“Members of these militias have infiltrated the Iraqi police and are abusing their police authority to pursue a plan to eliminate all homosexuals in Iraq.

“This is happening with the collusion of key ministers in the Iraqi government.

“The Badr and Sadr militias are the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq.

“These governing parties – particularly the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq - are complicit in the widespread execution of Iraqi LGBTs.

“What is happening today in Iraq is one of the most organised and systematic sexual cleansings in the history of the world,” Mr Hili told the conference.

Referring to the abduction by death squads, and presumed murder, of five members of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad last November, Mr Hili said:

“For the previous few months these activists had been documenting the killing of lesbians and gays, and relaying details of homophobic executions to our office in London. I have no doubt that they were targeted – not just because they were gay – but also to stop them exposing to the outside world the anti-gay pogrom that is happening in Iraq today,” he said.

Condemning the refusal of the British and US governments to grant asylum to many refugees from the homophobic and sectarian violence in Iraq, Mr Hili added:

“The West, which caused much the current chaos in Iraq, should be giving refuge to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Iraqis. Right now, the US and Britain are turning down asylum claims by Iraqi LGBTs,” he said.

The full text of Mr Hili’s speech follows below.

The “Faith, Homophobia and Human Rights” conference had the support of 52 sponsors, including the Home Office, religious organisations (gay and straight), trade unions, LGBT groups, secular campaigners and ethnic minority agencies.

Speaking after the conference, Mr Hili said:

“The aim of the conference was to build a progressive alliance between people of faith and the queer community, and to oppose the rise of religious fundamentalism – in particular, the bid by some faith groups to seek exemption from equality laws protecting LGBTs.”

Further information: Ali Hili +44 (0)79819 594 53

More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/


The text of Ali Hili’s speech to the “Faith, Homophobia and Human Rights” conference in London on 17 February 2007.


“I speak on behalf of Iraqi LGBT – an underground network of LGBT activists that we have established inside Iraq.

Our members – and all Iraqi LGBTs - are at daily risk of execution by the Shia death squads of the Badr and Sadr militias.

Members of these militias have infiltrated the Iraqi police and are abusing their police authority to pursue a plan to eliminate all homosexuals in Iraq.

This is happening with the collusion of key ministers in the Iraqi government.

The Badr and Sadr militias are the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq.

These governing parties – particularly the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq - are complicit in the widespread execution of Iraqi LGBTs.

What is happening today in Iraq is one of the most organized and systematic sexual cleansings in the history of the world.

Attacks have escalated into unprecedented levels of homophobic violence, including targeted assassinations.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) has recently, for the first time, confirmed that there are organised campaigns to kill gays in Iraq. These killings are taking place on the order of Iraq’s Shia leaders.

The UNAMI Human Rights Office recently reported that it was “alerted to the existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where alleged homosexuals would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death, and then executed.”

One of the self-appointed religious judges in Sadr City believes that homosexuality is on the wane in Iraq. “Most [gays] have been killed and others have fled,” he said, insisting that the religious courts have “a lot to be proud of. We now represent a society that asked us to protect it not only from thieves but also from these [bad] deeds [same-sex relationships]."

Iraq's government strongly criticized the UNAMI report on human rights abuses; condemning it for discussing issues that are considered taboo in Iraqi society, such as homosexuality, and the systematic murder of LGBTs.

“There 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 regime). "Such statements are not suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected. They (the UN) should respect the values and traditions here in Iraq.”

I will give you just one example of the homophobic terror Iraqi LGBTs are facing.

Five activists in Baghdad were discovered in a safe house and abducted at gunpoint on 9 November last year. Nothing has been heard of them since then. It is feared that death squads operating within the Iraqi police may have murdered them.

The kidnapped men all were members of our group Iraqi LGBT.

For the previous few months these activists had been documenting the killing of lesbians and gays, and relaying details of homophobic executions to our office in London. I have no doubt that they were targeted – not just because they were gay – but also to stop them exposing to the outside world the anti-gay pogrom that is happening in Iraq today.

The Iranian Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the world leader of Shia Muslims, clearly states that gays and lesbians should be executed.

This gives direct religious sanction to the murder of LGBTs by the Badr and Sadr death squads. Sistani is giving the killers divine authority.

In spite of the world unity against the unlawful war on Iraq, the United States and its allies, including the government of the United Kingdom, chose to go ahead with the invasion of Iraq and cause the deaths of so many innocent lives.

The everyday loss of innocent lives in Iraq does not seem to matter to the western media today, especially when the victims are minorities like LGBTs.

The urgency now is to protect LGBT people in Iraq. We need action by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and by other international aid agencies and human right organisations.

The UNHCR is failing to support Iraqi LGBTs who have fled to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It should be providing them with shelter and subsistence. It should be giving them travel documents, so they can seek refuge in safe western countries. So far, this is not happening.

The West, which caused much the current chaos in Iraq, should be giving refuge to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iraqis. Right now, the US and Britain are turning down asylum claims by Iraqi LGBTs.

We need funding to enable our activists inside Iraq to continue to document the killings, acquire more safe houses, and to assist LGBTs to escape to neighbouring countries.

We are working closely with OutRage!. Please send a donation payable to OutRage!, with a cover note stating that it is “For Iraqi LGBT”.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Peter Tatchell and OutRage! for all the help that they have provided Iraqi LGBT so far.

Finally, we Iraqi LGBTs will not allow ourselves to exterminated liked rats. We are determined to fight for our rights in the new Iraq. With your help, we can defy the religious fundamentalists and win our place in a free and democratic nation,” said Mr Hili.

Conference Declaration:

http://www.lgcm.org.uk/fhconference/Conference_Statement.html

Conference photos and podcasts of the main speeches:

http://www.lgcm.org.uk/fhconference/gallery/gallery.html

Conference background information:

http://www.lgcm.org.uk/fhconference/

Note:

Iraqi LGBT is autonomous and independent. It is run by Iraqi refugees in the UK and Iraqi LGBTs based inside Iraq. OutRage! has assisted Iraqi LGBT with start-up funding, media contacts and banking facilities.

Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account and have asked for donations to be forwarded via OutRage! Cheques should 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.

More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Ends

Gay Iraqis face continued persecution

Sectarian blackmail, mutilation, and assassination of gays are rife.


16th February 2007
Alexis Hood

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has promised to crack down on the persecution of gay people in Iraq.

The slaughter of gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads is yet another tragic consequence of the chaos and carnage in this beleaguered country.

It would seem that no-one is safe from fundamentalist militias, who target Iraqis for "crimes against Islam," which might include drinking alcohol, having a Sunni name, or not being veiled if you are a woman.

Sectarian blackmail, mutilation, and assassination of gays are rife.

In 2005, Iraq’s leading Muslim cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis.

The followers of rebel leader Muqtada al-Sadr, too, are proving they are all too eager to murder gays.

Now pressure from gay and human rights groups has forced the FCO to tackle these attacks on gay Iraqis.

As late as May last year, a letter drafted by FCO officials was reluctant to address this problem.

"We are of course aware of reports about the activities of so-called death squads in Iraq who are allegedly targeting people whose values are different from their own," the letter read.

"This problem has mainly been centred on differences in religious belief and ethnicity, but we are aware of reports that it has now spread to include sexual orientation.

"It is difficult, however, to assess clearly the extent of this problem and how much it reflects criminality and local feuding as opposed to widespread or organised movement against any particular group or groups."

April 2006 saw more wavering from the FCO over reports of persecution of gays. In a communication, an FCO official gave their opinion that: "The position of homosexuality in Iraqi law is not clear. There is no specific law that we know of against homosexuality but there are others that could be seen to see it as illegal."

By August 2006, however, the targeting of gays in Iraq was a hot topic. The Observer ran an article: "Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target."

People started writing to the FCO, who prepared the following statement in response:

"We are aware of reports of increasing violence and intimidation against homosexual men in Iraq.

This is in the context of a wider rise in violence against Iraqi civilians including violence against women, sectarian violence and violence against minorities.

"We condemn all violence and intimidation and are working with the Iraqi government to tackle this, including by helping strengthen the capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces. More widely, we are working to promote respect for the rule of law and human rights by and for all Iraqis.

"We raise issues of concern, such as the reports of increasing levels of violence against minorities with the Iraqi government on a regular basis."

But gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell warns that these murders are an ominous sign of things to come.

Writing in the New Humanist, he accuses some Iraqi police and government ministers of colluding in the killings, and argues that: "the execution of lesbian and gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads and militia is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence. The summary killing of queers is the canary in the mine – a warning of the barbarism to come."

Please check the link:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-3731.html

U.N. confirms anti-gay death squads in Iraq

by Anthony Glassman

Baghdad--The United Nations has for the first time confirmed that there are organized campaigns to kill gays in Iraq, directed by orders from Islamic leaders.

One such order says gays “should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq’s Human Rights Report for the last two months of 2006 has a section on sexual orientation, the first time it has been included in a report from the organization.

“Even though homosexuality is not condoned in Iraqi society, homosexuals are protected under Iraqi law,” the report reads. “Attacks on homosexuals and intolerance of homosexual practices have long existed, yet they have escalated in the past year.”

“The current environment of impunity and lawlessness invites a heightened level of insecurity for homosexuals in Iraq,” it continues. “Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them.”

Those campaigns are at the behest of Islamic leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Shiite Muslims in Iraq.

British gay civil rights advocate Peter Tatchell issued a warning last March that such attacks were being carried out with increasing regularity. It had a link to Sistani’s website and its proscriptions against same-sex activity.

“What is the judgment for sodomy and lesbianism?” Sistani’s site asks.

“Forbidden,” comes the answer. “Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

Currently, Sistani’s site says, “Question: What is the view on a man embracing another man with lust, and go about kissing one another with sexual desire? What if they go even further and enter the domain of deviant sexual behaviour? Answer: All of this is haram even if there might be difference in the degree of prohibition.”

“Haram” is that which is forbidden in Islam.

“Allegedly, three fatwas [Islamic legal pronouncements] would have been issued by Islamic clerics authorizing ‘good Muslims’ to hunt and kill homosexuals,” the U.N. report states. “[The Human Rights Office] was also alerted to the existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be ‘tried,’ ‘sentenced’ to death and then executed.”

Both Tatchell and the UNAMI report expound on some of the attacks on LGBT Iraqis. UNAMI’s report says, “At least five homosexual males were reported to have been kidnapped from Shaab area in the first week of December by one of the main militias. Their personal documents and information contained in computers were also confiscated.”

“The mutilated body of Amjad, one of the kidnapped, appeared in the same area after a few days,” it continues.

Tatchell, meanwhile, spoke to Ali Hili, head of the Iraqi LGBT UK Abu Nawas organization, made up of expatriate queer Iraqis living in Britain. Hili is also a member of Tatchell’s group, OutRage.

“Sistani is not even Iraqi,” Hili noted. “He is an Iranian national who has set himself up as a religious leader in Iraq. He wants to impose an Iranian-style theocracy on the Iraqi people.”

In Tatchell’s report, Hili details eight people who were killed, and one who was forced into hiding, because of the militias’ crusades against LGBT people.

Activists like Hili, who said that discreet homosexuality was tolerated under Saddam Hussein’s rule, noted that the power vacuum in the country is contributing to the violence. He is doubtful that President Bush’s plan to increase the number of troops will help the gay community.

Sexual cleansing in Iraq

Peter Tatchell reveals that Islamist death squads are targeting gays and lesbians

New Humanist – January/February 2007

Confronted as we are by a daily catalogue of horror stories from Iraq, it is easy to overlook the specific nature of some of the terror campaigns being conducted against its inhabitants.

Perhaps none has been so overlooked as the systematic ‘sexual cleansing’ operations currently being mounted by Islamist death squads, many of whom have infiltrated the Iraqi police. They relentlessly targets gays and lesbians for extra-judicial execution as part of an explicit crusade of moral purification.

Consider the fate of five gay men: Amjad (27), Rafid (29), Hassan (24), Ayman (19) and Ali (21). They were members of Iraq’s clandestine gay rights movement, Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender). For many months they had been documenting the killing of lesbians and gays, relaying details of the barbaric homophobic murders to the outside world, and providing safe houses and support to queers fleeing the death squads.

Last November they held a secret meeting in a safe house in the al-Shaab district of Baghdad. During the course of the meeting they were in communication with the founder and head of Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hili, who operates from London, UK. “Suddenly there was a lot of noise, then the connection ended,” recalls Mr Hili.

We now know that the meeting was interrupted by the arrival of Iraqi police who seized all five men at gunpoint. Nothing has been heard of them since.

Moral purification is not confined to gay men. In June last year, lslamist death squads burst into the home of two lesbians in city of Najaf. They shot them dead, slashed their throats, and also murdered a young child the lesbians had rescued from the sex trade. The two women, both in their mid-30s, were members of Iraqi LGBT. They were providing a safe house for gay men on the run from death squads. By sheer luck, none of the men who were being given shelter in the house were at home when the assassins struck. They have now fled to Baghdad and are hiding in an Iraqi LGBT safe house in the suburbs.

These latest horrific homophobic kidnappings and murders are a snapshot of the rapidly growing power and menace of Iraq’s death squads, many of which belong to militias that are hell-bent on turning the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state. Some operate within the police and others independently. All owe their allegiance to firebrand, militant Shia clerics.

Large parts of Iraq, including many Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of these fundamentalist militias and their death squad units. They enforce a harsh interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for what they denounce as “crimes against Islam.” These “crimes” include listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.

Two Shia militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Bush and Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s government coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship – or worse.

Some of the anti-war left in Britain and the US support Muqtada al-Sadr, despite his goal of clerical fascism and his militia’s involvement in death squad killings. They hail him as a national resistance hero for fighting the US and UK occupation of Iraq; totally ignoring his militia’s sectarian murder of innocent Sunni Muslims, women and gay people. The allied occupation of Iraq is bad enough. But victory for the Madhi or Badr militias would result in a reign of religious terror many times worse.

The execution of lesbian and gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads and militias is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence. The summary killing of queers is the canary in the mine – a warning of the barbarism to come.

Lesbian and gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity. Pro-fundamentalist government ministers are turning a blind eye to the killings, and helping to protect the killers.

Likewise, the Iraqi government and police are doing nothing to rescue the hundreds of young boys who have been blackmailed into the sex industry. The sex-ring operators lure the boys into having gay sex, photograph them and then threaten to publish their photos unless they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness were publicly revealed, the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.

Saddam was a bloody tyrant. But while he was in power discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. There was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated in the street by religious fanatics. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of lesbians and gays is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq’s leading Muslim cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In late 2005, he issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically assassinating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The UK-based LGBT human rights group OutRage! is working to support our counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous 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. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.

* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account. The UK gay rights group OutRage! is helping them. Cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.

More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

The victims of Islamist terror

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. According to his Baghdad neighbour, in April 2006 four men in police uniforms arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck. They wore the distinctive facemasks of the Badr militia. The neighbour saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.

Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad last March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq’s life. But he was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.

Wissam Auda was a member of Iraq’s Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play in the Wimbledon championship in London this year. He had been receiving death threats from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May 2006, his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and teammate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street. Their crime? Wissam’s homosexuality was probably what drew him to the attention of the militia’s, but his official crime was: wearing shorts. An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses.

The father of 23-year-old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor. Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia murdered two of his family members in retribution.

Nyaz is a 28-year old dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and her family will be targeted for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.