Beirut as an LGBT refuge? "It’s not great"

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Globalpost

By Don Duncan

The Algerian secret service gave transsexual Randa Lamri an ultimatum: Leave the country within 10 days or risk imprisonment and the defamation of her family.

Lamri, like many persecuted gays, lesbians and transexuals in the region, looked to Beirut for refuge.

“I was scared for my security and for the future of my family,” says Lamri, 39, who came to Lebanon on a tourist visa and immediately set about securing a work visa so that she could stay longer.

A founding member of an underground lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights association in Algeria called Abu Nahas, Lamri’s way of life had begun to provoke anonymous death threats from Islamist groups and persistent calls and visits to her workplace and family home from authorities.

Finally, the pressure became too much for her to bear.

“My brother-in-law told me: ‘If you die or go to prison and we find out why, your family will be disgraced and I’ll divorce your sister,’” Lamri says over coffee recently in an east Beirut café. She is tall with long jet-black hair and speaks in hushed words punctuated by the occasional toothy giggle.

Like many of the dozens of LGBTI people who flee to Lebanon from Middle Eastern and North African countries each year, Lamri joined up with a network of acquaintances, many of whom she’d met through activism back in Algeria. Relieved to have escaped the dangers facing her at home, Lamri quickly settled into her new-found freedoms in Lebanon.

“Life is much better here than in Algeria,” she says. “Dressing like a woman in Algeria can lead you to anything from three months to three years in prison. Here, there are no laws against transsexualism.”

Many LGBTI refugees here depart home in such haste that there is not enough time to go through the minimum two-month long visa process to get to Europe or North America. So Lebanon has, for many, become the only feasible refuge. It has a simpler visa procedure (many can get it on arrival at the airport) and enjoys a general perception in the region that its capital Beirut is a liberal, relatively gay-friendly city.

“I think the first place they think of [coming to if they can't get to Europe or North America] would be Beirut, primarily because there is an LGBT infrastructure,” says Rasha Moumneh, researcher for the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch. “You have LGBT organizations, you have the UNHCR here, which is very aware of the specificities of LGBT asylum seekers and refugees.”

The “LGBT infrastructure” Moumneh mentions includes the only openly active LGBTI NGO in the region, Helem, as well as various LGBTI-sensitized services such as ReStart, a clinic which offers psychological counseling for refugees fleeing traumatic conditions, a UNHCR office which is familiar with and sensitized to the specific needs and vulnerabilities of the LGBTI community, as well as a pretty vibrant gay scene of bars, cafes and nightclubs.

“I didn’t think Lebanon was going to be as liberal as it is,” says Lamri, who entered the country in 2009.

It is hard to find an accurate figure of how many LGBTI people fleeing their countries arrive in Lebanon yearly. Out of fear of deportation, many stay away from registering themselves with any NGO or with the UNHCR. Many of those who do register, cite other reasons for fleeing, such as war and internal strife in the case of Iraqis and Syrians. The UNHCR office in Beirut says it gets up to two dozen people annually claiming refugee status for reasons related to their sexuality or gender status. Gay rights groups cite similar figures but acknowledge that this may be just the tip of the iceberg. Some activists say the true figure could be as much as triple the UNHCR figure.

From time to time the numbers spike severely, when there are political developments in other countries, sending members of the LGBTI community fleeing. A coordinated campaign in Iraq in 2009, against gay men primarily, led by the Shia Mahadi Army militia and the Sunni Al Qaeda in Mespotamia militia, claimed the lives of hundreds. Iraqi gay men, or men suspected of being gay, were hunted down in a move to “clean” the morality of Iraq which had been “corrupted” by the foreign influence brought by the U.S invasion in 2003.

A Human Rights Watch report details a litany of threats and torture that Iraqi men faced – being burnt alive, being hung in public places, decapitations, castrations, rape, anuses being glued shut. The campaign sent hundreds fleeing, many to Beirut.

Hamdia, a 20-year-old Iraqi gay man living in Beirut, had already fled before the 2009 homophobic campaign of violence, which has made it unlikely he will ever move back. His family fled to Syria in 2006, after his 11-year-old brother was kidnapped by a gang and was released for a $60,000 ransom. Hamida, who goes by a pseudonym, was still in high school at the time and finished it in Damascus, but the $60,000 ransom meant that his family could no longer afford to send him to London for university as planned. He now studies fashion design in Beirut.

“In Syria, you don’t feel safe. You have the secret police and they are watching you,” he says in his apartment in the west Beirut neighborhood of Hamra. “In Iraq, they think Beirut is like Europe and they have this picture that it is perfect. Beirut is better, sure, but it’s not great.”

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Documenting the lives of Iraq's gay refugees

Photo credit Bradley Secker

By Paul Canning

Iraqi gay refugees may be almost forgotten but one man has photographic proof that they exist.

Back in June the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law published the report 'A Decade Lost: Locating Gender in U.S. Counter-Terrorism', the first account of how U.S. counter terrorism efforts have undermined the rights of women and sexual minorities.

The report includes the 'collateral damage' from the Iraq war, the hundreds of LGBT people hunted down and killed in Iraq, including some by state actors, and the probably thousands (no one knows) who have fled. The group Iraqi LGBT has been almost solely responsible for documenting the murders.

Another report [PDF], released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in September says that attacks on LGBT in Iraq continued in 2010.

Neither report got much play but a new show of photographs by Bradley Secker puts a name to the gay refugees.

'Iraq’s Unwanted People’ ran in First Out Café in London between August and September (It is now possible to see it on his website – www.bradleysecker.com or view Secker taking a journalist round the exhibition on its opening night).

Secker, a U.K based photojournalist, traveled to Damascus, where most of the Iraqis fled to and from which many are now fleeing again in autumn 2010.

Many have fled to Jordan. In May, blog An epilogue to a black orchid reported:

"Iraqi LGBT refugees, in particular, lead shattered lives in Jordan. I have visited many of them in prison cells that closely resemble dreary living rooms and one bedroom apartments."

"The agoraphobic lifestyles LGBT Iraqi refugees have been coerced into are a sign of an ingrained fear of the excessive homophobia we witness in Middle Eastern countries today."

"I have come to know one male-to-female transgender Iraqi refugee, who gathers the will every morning to live within her skin for one more day, swallowing the self-hate and fear of facing young homophobia lined on either side of the streets branching from her door step, armed with slurs, pebbles and whatever happens to be in their grasp; be it hot coffee, tomatoes or sandwiches. It takes unimaginable strength to endure the hit daily, and remind yourself that loving who you are is still worth it."

Gaining the trust of these individuals in Damascus meant Bradley could see inside the closed diaspora of Iraqi LGBT refugees first hand.

His primary aim was to create a photo essay with written, first hand testimonies. Accompanying the images, a short documentary film has been made to further highlight the issue in another medium.

Wrote Gay Middle East:

"Through photos and interviews, the individual accounts are posing questions as to how, and why, such acts of violence and brutality can be overlooked in a new 'free' Iraq."

Some graphic shots show how these people were persecuted.

One who was in the armed forces was blinded in one eye when it was discovered he was not straight. Another had his testicle destroyed in a hammer attack and several others were also beaten and tortured.

One of Secker's strongest images (published here), writes Xav Judd for QX Magazine, is:

"A man gazing over the whitish-beige historic city of Damascus may consider himself blessed by the gods, such is the idyllic nature of the view. And yet, underneath the azure blue skyline of the Syrian capital is a grim reality: life is anything but a fairytale if you are gay."

This man is Bissam, a 41 year-old who had worked as an actor in theatre and TV productions and as an interpreter and translator for the US army and international media operations.

He told Judd:

“One afternoon ... my [wife] searched my bags and found a diary and a gay porn DVD. She read through my agenda and discovered about my sexuality and the non-straight life I had led."

"Consequently, she tried to use this information to bribe me – I was threatened with disclosure of my true identity to my family – to get as much as possible out of any settlement. Eventually, my spouse did ‘out’ me and word spread to my whole community."

"This was particularly painful as I had always been one of its pillars and was the one that everybody else looked up to. Now exposed and thus in danger, I left Iraq legally and went to Damascus in an American GMC land cruiser."

“In Syria, I had hardly any money; I was registered and certified as a refugee by UNHCR .. existence meant living on bread and cheese, or even just one egg a day. One plus, though, was that my ‘gay’ life in Damascus was very much alive and well."

"Eventually, I had to leave the country because the recent political upheaval [the Arab revolutions] and sectarian violence made things increasingly dangerous."

“I moved to Turkey. It is very difficult: a foreign culture, different language and I have no friends. And, I have to keep a low profile because the vicinity where I live is very conservative."

In fact, says Judd, just last week, Bissam was hit over the head with a frying pan by a flatmate who had unearthed that he is gay. A September report said that there has been an improvement of the tratment of LGBT refugees in Turkey following much work by numerous agencies.

“I want to find myself," says Bissam. "I have been waiting for years as a nobody, stuck nowhere, for some kind of future. It is not fair; I am not really a refuge, but am in this position just because I am gay. I often thought about killing myself."

• View the photo essay

Related articles

• Video: New photography show in London portrays gay Iraqi refugees in Syria (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• UN reports on violent attacks on LGBT in Iraq (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Why Syrian LGBT people should join the revolution (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

The lives of LGBT Iraqis in Jordan

Source: An epilogue to a black orchid

The lives of many Arab LGBT individual symbolize human fragility, trapped in the hushed pleas for acceptance of diversity.  Admittedly, the Arab street is not homogeneous in its stance against sexual minorities; while Lebanon criminalizes homosexuality, Jordanian law leaves the issue mostly untouched -perhaps in denial, but hopefully, in protection of our community. Those who are unprotected by anti-discrimination laws do suffer; Queer individuals continue to be denied employment, housing, and education based on their sexual orientation and unorthodox gender-identity expressions.

In the lack of institutional protection, LGBT individuals in the Middle East do not only find themselves enfeebled by legal systems, but also stigmatized by their own societies. We have come across countless cases of queer individuals who are prosecuted -not by the government- but by the own local communities. Those who are LGBT and live in their home-countries fight their own battles, however, those who are queer and live as refugees suffer from what the American legal system refers to as “double jeopardy”; facing prosecution twice, once due to their refugee status, and once due to their LGBT identities.

Iraqi LGBT refugees, in particular, lead shattered lives in Jordan. I have visited many of them in prison cells that closely resemble dreary living rooms and one bedroom apartments. The agoraphobic lifestyles LGBT Iraqi refugees have been coerced into are a sign of an ingrained fear of the excessive homophobia we witness in Middle Eastern countries today. I have come to know one male-to-female transgender Iraqi refugee, who gathers the will every morning to live within her skin for one more day, swallowing the self-hate and fear of facing young homophobia lined on either side of the streets branching from her door step, armed with slurs, pebbles and whatever happens to be in their grasp; be it hot coffee, tomatoes or sandwiches. It takes unimaginable strength to endure the hit daily, and remind yourself that loving who you are is still worth it

The fear dominating the lives of LGBT Iraqis was not instilled here, Jordan merely maintained the fear. In fact, most LGBT Iraqis I have come in contact with seem to be suffering from post-traumatic stress caused by their experiences in post-war Iraq. Prior the US army invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi queer community enjoyed its LGBT-friendly bars, discos and chat rooms. There was a queer scene; in fact, a relatively open one. One LGBT Iraqi describes the clothing gay men used to wear as to “tight pants and colorful deep v-necks”, picked out with intention of labeling the owner’s sexuality. There were threats, however, posed by the tribal familial structure, which is committed to traditional Arab values and customs. Nonetheless, as long as LGBT individuals respected the dimensions of their closets, they seemed to keep safe.

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In Jordan, a homophobic attack in a gay night club

Source: Gay Middle East

By Dan Littauer, GME Editor




Every Thursday night, there is a gay friendly party at the Marmara hotel, Amman. At last Thursday's Halloween party (28/10/2010), around 3am, the two bouncers suddenly pulled out a gun and a knife announcing: “Get out of here within two minutes; otherwise you will be shot with this gun! Don’t ever come back here again or you will be beaten up!” Then they started to vandalise the place and cursed gays with abusive and derogatory terms. Everyone ran out of the club thankfully no one was shot. The people that run the parties know exactly who was responsible and a report was given to the police. However, until this 1 November no arrests have been made.


One party goer who was present during the attack said to GME: “The whole incident was awful and very scary. We barely have a handful of places to go. We really need to feel protected in such venues!”

Unverified reports/rumours say that one man was beaten up by the bouncers when he was discovered in the bathroom.

Gay Middle East calls upon the Jordanian authorities to follow up the information, investigate and arrest the people responsible for this crime. If you have more reliable information please do not hesitate to contact us on contact@gaymiddleeast.com

Netherlands: promised land for gay refugees?

Image via Wikipedia  

Source: Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Arrests, torture and death threats. It is an all too familiar story for many refugees who flee their countries because they are homosexual. Those that come to the the Netherlands hope to find peace and a residence permit here. But their problems simply start all over again in the country's asylum centres, says 24-year-old Palestinian Aboutabdullah.

When a neighbour told Aboutabdullah's family he was gay, they locked him up. He managed to flee the house, only to be caught by his brother and uncle. They shot him in the legs. For Aboutabdullah, the time to leave his homeland, Jordan, had come.

So he headed for the gay-friendly Netherlands, which he had heard so much about on the internet. While he waited for a refugee residence permit, Aboutabdullah was placed in a asylum seekers' centre in the southern city of Eindhoven. But here, his torment just started all over again:

"They put me in a room with two or three straight guys [...] they all talk about girls and they all take marihuana sometimes. And when they knew I was gay they might try to have something [i.e. sex, ed.] with me and they might use bad word [...] Because in their religion I am shit, you know."

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Praying for Pride

Image by hebedesign via Flickr

By Andy Haden

When a gay friend was forced by the Lebanese police to disclose the identities of other homosexuals, Jimmy’s real problems started. The police came to his house to find him, and caused Jimmy to flee the country as a result.

“When my father found out, he said he doesn’t accept me in the house. He would accept me as a criminal in the house but not as a gay, because this brings shame upon the family name.”

Tolerance & taboo

Islam and homosexuality are not two words that tend to be associated with each other, conjuring up images of prejudice, shame and violence, even death. Some claim that the two are in no way compatible, with this passage from the Koran (7:80-81) being used to justify their beliefs:

“We also sent Lut: He said to his people: “Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.”

The Netherlands has long been a bastion of liberalism, with a rich history of tolerance and acceptance of all cultures and minorities. Fearing for their lives, many LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Muslims from around the world flock to what is described as the ‘pink pillar of light’ in the Netherlands. However, regulations on asylum are being tightened up, with those fleeing because of their sexuality having to prove that they are both in danger, and actually gay. Islamophobia is also on the rise in some sections of Dutch society. What must life be like for those caught in the middle of this – those who dare to be gay and Muslim?

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Interview with the “first gay face” of Jordan

Source: sex etc.

By Sara Racek, 16, Staff Writer

Twenty-one-year-old Khalid still remembers being 14 and attracted to his friend.

“There was this older guy in my school who was interested in me, friendship-wise. Being around him, I always felt safe and secure. I felt I couldn’t be touched or harassed. I remember waiting for my mom to pick me up after school, and he’d be there doing the same. We’d talk, and whenever my book would fall from my hand, he’d lean down and pick it up for me. That made me feel special.”

Khalid couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something about this particular friend that made him feel special and silly and completely confused. Khalid spent hours pondering his feelings and what they meant. Was this a crush?

Khalid lives in Amman, Jordan, in the Middle East. At 14, he had never heard the word “gay” before.

“I remember reading the word ‘gay’ on a cover of a magazine, which led me to look for the meaning. After finding out what it really meant, I was in this phase of confusion,” Khalid explains. “I isolated myself from all the people around me and kept my distance from my friends and family. I created my own world—my own cocoon, where I felt free and more myself.”

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Blogging behind closed doors

Source: The Guide

By Michael K Lavers

Khalid knows how frightening it can be to live in a country where being gay is taboo.

In 2007, Khalid agreed to appear on the inaugural cover of MK, the first gay magazine in Jordan. But the shirtless photo of the young man caused a stir after the tabloids caught wind of it. The outcry was so fierce the magazine never published.

"I was still in school at the time," Khalid told Guide magazine from his home in Amman, the capital of Jordan. "People were talking about it in my school, and they didn't know it was me at the time. It was very scary because there was no one in the whole Arab world " the Middle East " who was out in the media."

Although Khalid says he never felt his life was in danger, he did face blackmail attempts from those who threatened to out him to his parents. He hid out in neighboring Lebanon until the scandal had passed.

"It's very simple as I'm talking about it, but at the time it was very big because no other media was talking about homosexuality," Khalid said. "But now, everyone in Jordan is talking about it. That's a big step in two years."

The 21-year-old model eventually returned to Jordan, where he launched the monthly webzine My Kali to give Arab gays "a better image to look up to."

"Most of the people here look to English, European and American publications," Khalid said. "Those images don't really apply here. I just wanted to give people a different image to which [they] can relate."

Khalid, who asked that his last name not be used, is one of a growing number of gays around the world who have launched online publications. Their sites serve as virtual community centers and are an increasingly important source of news and information for gays in their own countries and others around the world.

But this online activism is often dangerous, which is why most of the bloggers quoted in this article asked that their full names not be used. Some countries in which gay bloggers work ban homosexuality. Laws designed to curb homosexual activity often carry steep prison sentences --and sometimes the death penalty. Homophobic attitudes can prove equally harmful.

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Opinion: To Struggle for Gay Rights is to Struggle for All Rights

Source: Human Rights Watch - Feb 4

By Scott Long


(New York) - The email came to Human Rights Watch anonymously, late one night.

"I am a gay, working in Saudi Arabia ... last night me and my friends were in the shopping mall and suddenly the Saudi police attack us and arrested my friend Mu'ayyad and I managed to run away ... He is in jail and they are treating him like an animal, they abuse him and hit him every minute, please we don't have any hope ..."

From our office in New York, we spent days trying to find a Saudi lawyer for this man. When he was eventually freed, we worked with refugee organizations to help him escape the country. A few months later, I visited him in Jordan, where he'd found temporary shelter. He spoke haltingly of his ordeal: picked up by the Saudi religious police because they thought his T-shirt suspiciously tight, his walk too "feminine." They tortured him and tried to rape him in his prison cell.

Mu'ayyad was an Iraqi, not a Saudi citizen. He'd been forced to flee Baghdad for the relative safety of Riyadh a year earlier. When his relatives in Iraq had learned he was gay, his entire extended family vowed to kill him.
As a refugee, Mu'ayyad was finally able to resettle in the United States. We only learned his story by accident: because his lonely, terrified friend sent out an email in the dark.

Many such stories happen. Most remain in darkness. Around the world, few places are safe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Some 80 countries criminalize consensual homosexual sex. Over half of them, from Malaysia to Jamaica, are clinging to repressive laws on "sodomy" that were left behind by British colonialism. The United States itself only scrapped its own such laws seven years ago.

New legal repression threatens. Uganda, not content with the law the British left, is debating a draconian "anti-homosexuality bill" that would inflict the death penalty on repeat offenders. "Promoting homosexuality" - any positive mention of it, any advocacy for gay people's rights - would incur a five-year sentence. And anyone who failed to report a homosexual to police within 24 hours would face three years in prison. The bill would build a nation of informers, turning citizen against citizen, sibling against sibling.

Mu'ayyad's story points to deeper dangers, though. For most LGBT people, the law is less threatening than prejudice and panic, hate and fear: an environment where families can be moved to kill their children in the name of "morality" or "honor." The Uganda bill, too, draws strength from how politicians and religious leaders seeking popularity and power have demonized LGBT people for years. One homophobic minister in Kampala this year promised to lead a "million man march" to support the death penalty for gays.
Around the world, sexuality has become a battleground.

"Fundamentalism" is a word both over-used and ill-defined. If it means anything, though, it describes movements that try to capture the state, to enforce social norms that society, community and family used to impose. Fundamentalisms feed on fear, on the sense of social breakdown, on the intuition that old values need new policing to prop them up.

Governments thus use their nightsticks and their surveillance systems to control people's bodies, to intrude in areas of private life that in many cases used to be irrelevant to them or off-limits. Ambitious politicians exploit fears of women's and men's sexual freedom for their own ends. Preachers and reporters alike stoke the atmosphere of prejudice, invoking desperate measures needed to combat what they call decadence.

One example: in Iraq in 2009, media and mosques spread fears that Iraqi manhood was somehow threatened with being "feminized" after years of occupation. Headlines and sermons warned that Western habits and an insidious "softness" were eating away at masculinity. Militias seized the chance to pose as protectors of morality, and started hunting victims - not just gay men, but any men who seemed "unmanly." Tight jeans or gelled hair could spell death.

Hundreds may have been murdered, kidnapped from homes or killed on the streets. In some cases the killers shot glue up their victims' anuses: a brutal reminder that their bodies were the abject property of others' beliefs, a reminder of what happens if you break unwritten laws of gender.

As human rights activists, we try to change practices, not sentiments. Yet LGBT rights defenders always know that the real terrain of our struggles lies in hearts and minds, in consciences scarred by hatred or open to acceptance.

There have been signs of hope this year. In June 2009, an Indian court overturned that country's 149-year-old sodomy law - the first such law that Britain ever imposed on its colonial possessions. It freed countless citizens of the world's largest democracy from the threat of blackmail or police harassment.

Yet the court saw its decision as extending beyond a single bad law. It affirmed this was not just about privacy or the citizen's right to safety behind closed doors, but about Indian democracy itself. It explicitly rejected a vision of the state as protective parent or as divisive judge. It cited Nehru, the nation's founder, declaring that "Where society can display inclusiveness and understanding," everyone can lead a life of dignity.

That is the real truth which voices too long shrouded in silence have been saying to us all. The struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's human rights is not just a campaign for a minority or a battle for gradual law reform. It is about what kind of societies we want to live in - and what kinds of people we want to be. It is about rejecting hatred and irrational fear; it is about the freedom to live an autonomous life. Ultimately, the struggle is about all of us, for all of us.

UNHCR: Not safe to send Iraqis back to central areas

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Source: AlertNet

By Stephanie Nebehay

European countries should stop forcibly returning Iraqis to Iraq's central provinces until security improves, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.

Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have repatriated hundreds of Iraqis to dangerous areas, despite the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees' advice last April that they still need protection, it said.

"It is just too dangerous to forcibly return people to Iraq," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told a news briefing. "We have seen a number of European countries doing this."

Those deported include asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected, and convicted criminals, according to the spokesman.

Baghdad is still wracked by periodic bombings and a series of car bombs killed 112 people in the capital on Tuesday, according to police.

"Despite the efforts of the authorities, the security situation remains precarious," Mahecic said.

"Countries need to refrain from forcibly returning Iraqis originating from the region of central Iraq back to those governorates deemed to be unsafe, namely Baghdad, Nineveh, Salahuddin, Diyala and Kirkuk," he said.

For Iraqi asylum-seekers from the three semi-autonomous northern provinces, the southern provinces and the western province of Anbar, UNHCR recommends their cases be reviewed on an individual basis.

Sectarian carnage and conflict since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 created a massive refugee crisis. An estimated 2 million Iraqis fled, mainly to Syria and Jordan.

"There is concern in some Middle East countries that these people should be returning to Iraq," William Lacy Swing, director-general of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), told reporters in Geneva on Thursday.

"The problem is when will they be able to? In the meantime, should they be given an opportunity to resettle somewhere else?"

Some 56,218 Iraqis have been resettled voluntarily in 10 Western countries since Oct. 2006 under an IOM programme.

Nearly 38,000 of them went to the United States, according to the IOM. Canada and Australia have taken in the second and third highest numbers of resettled Iraqis.

Perceptions and realities

Kylie Minogue via last.fm

Source: In the middle of the east

By zentor

‘How ironic that many Lebanese gay men, including myself, actually feel more comfortable in places like Damascus or Amman and go there often in order to escape the Beiruti agitation. There might be no Kylie Minogue nights there, but on the other hand there is a lot less snobbery and less fuss about homosexuality. My friend Ali recently went to Jordan to be wedded to his boyfriend by a Muslim cleric and then spent his honeymoon in Damascus. The advantage of such trips also comes in finding an anonymity one is denied at home.But even Amman seems to have its “globalised” gay crowd. Watching Ugly Betty and wearing D&G is what gay culture is about, these people seem to say, along with the NYT article and many gay men across the global village. I can still remember how discovering Steven, the gay character in Dynasty, during my childhood in the 1980s, opened a whole new perspective for me. It is another matter altogether to equate this mass consumption with gay culture, or even with gay rights advocacy. Just as Beirut’s old neighbourhoods are being gentrified, its “superb architecture” (sic) being torn down to make way for soulless, surveillance-camera-equipped skyscrapers, its local gay culture is facing the challenge of McDonaldisation. How long before writers start describing Beirut as a new Bangkok – rather than a Provincetown? Will sex tourism advance its population’s gay rights or social wellbeing? In the meantime, Beirut is certainly turning back into the playground of multinational companies, regional interests and greedy entrepreneurs.’

This, by the way, is only the second reference I ever heard to Sunni sheikhs performing gay marriages – the other case reportedly occurred some years ago in Kuwait, where a sheikh married two women – but only because one of them was actually born as a man and had undergone a sex change: as his birth certificate asserted he was a man, however, the sheikh saw no legal problem there.

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays

Source: The Observer

By Afif Sarhan and Jason Burke

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

"It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.

Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.

The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed."

The violence against Iraqi gays is a key test of the government's ability to protect vulnerable minority groups after the Americans have gone.

Dr Toby Dodge, of London University's Queen Mary College, believes that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nouri al-Maliki. "Militia groups whose raison d'être was security in their communities are seeing that function now fulfilled by the police. So their focus has shifted to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries," Dodge said.

Homosexuality was not criminalised under Saddam Hussein – indeed Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its relatively liberated gay scene. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a London-based human-rights group, a total of 680 have died in Iraq, with at least 70 of those in the past five months. The group believes the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women. According to Hali, Iraq has become "the worst place for homosexuals on Earth".

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."

She went with police to find her son's remains. "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals," she said. "I will carry this image with me until my dying day."

Police officers interviewed by the Observer said the killings were not aimed at gays but were isolated remnants of the sectarian violence that racked the country between 2005 and 2006. Hamizi's group, however, boasts that two people a day are chosen to be "investigated" in Baghdad. The group claims that local tribes are involved in homophobic attacks, choosing members to hunt down the victims. In some areas, a list of names is posted at restaurants and food shops.

The roommate of Haydar, 26, was kidnapped and killed three months ago in Baghdad. After Haydar contacted the last person his friend had been chatting with on the net, he found a letter on his front door alerting him "about the dangers of behaving against Islamic rules". Haydar plans to flee to Amman, the Jordanian capital. "I have… to run away before I suffer the same fate," he said.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Shia militia known as the Mahdi army may be among the militants implicated in the violence, particularly in the northern part of Baghdad known as Sadr City. There are reports that Mahdi army militias are harassing young men simply for wearing "western fashions".

A Ministry of Interior spokesperson, Abdul-Karim Khalaf, denied allegations of police collaboration. "The Iraqi police exists to protect all Iraqis, whatever their sexual persuasion," he said.

Hashim, another victim of violence by extremists, was attacked on Abu Nawas Street. Famous for its restaurants and bars, the street has become a symbol of the relative progress made in Baghdad. But it was where Hashim was set on by four men, had a finger cut off and was badly beaten. His assailants left a note warning that he had one month to marry and have "a traditional life" or die.

"Since that day I have not left my home. I'm too scared and don't have money to run away," Hashim said.

The Situation of LGBT Iraqi Refugees

Chapter from Human Rights Watch report: "They Want Us Exterminated": Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq

Pervasive social prejudice, family repression, lack of any effective legal protection, and sudden outbursts of lethal violence all mean that suspect men in Iraq are in steady danger. 

Few Iraqis have altogether escaped the spreading circles of sectarian, retaliatory, or random violence since the occupation began, just as the state's ferocity under Saddam left few citizens wholly unscathed. Men seen as effeminate or suspected of homosexual conduct are not necessarily more intensely targeted than other groups or identities have been in recent years. However, they have certain specific disadvantages.

Their isolated circles, organized round a few networks of friends or anonymous aliases on the Internet, constitute nothing like a cohesive community that could furnish mutual support. Nor, in most cases, are their families willing to offer any help or protection, even if they could. Many men who identify as gay have nowhere to turn, and no recourse but to leave the country.

For most this means going to another, nearby country in the region. There, their best hope is to register with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They must then endure the time-consuming procedure of refugee status determination, in which the UNHCR evaluates their case and decides whether their claim is valid. After that comes the long and uncertain wait to be resettled elsewhere; the UNHCR must present the refugee's file to sympathetic governments and ask them to accept him. During these processes, which can last years, the applicants must stay where they are.

For Iraqis who have already faced persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity, no country around Iraq is safe.

Years of violence in Iraq since 2003 have generated a massive crisis of displacement.  UNHCR estimates that nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled the country, most to surrounding states.[116] Of these, 291,000-about 14 percent of the estimated total-are registered with UNHCR; only some 72,400 of these have so far been referred for resettlement, and only 28,200 of them have actually been resettled.[117] The vast majority of the estimated 2 million are in Syria (which UNHCR estimates hosts around 1,200,000 Iraqis now, although only 206,000 have been registered) and Jordan (with an estimated 450,000, of whom 52,000 are registered).[118]

No figures are available-or are likely to become so-for what proportion of any of these numbers have fled persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The UNHCR does not disaggregate data according to the grounds of refugee claims. The relevant numbers are almost certainly quite small as against the overall, overwhelming flood of people on the move. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis in the refugee system face, once again, specific dangers. 

Consensual homosexual conduct is illegal in all the countries surrounding Iraq except Turkey and Jordan. In Iran and Saudi Arabia it is punished, under certain circumstances, by death.   Refugees fleeing persecution in Iraq because of their sexual orientation and gender identity may face renewed persecution in virtually all the countries where they can find interim refuge. Moreover, the absence of an open and substantial LGBT community capable of providing even the barest mutual assistance, and the lack of any family support for most LGBT people forced to flee, continue to restrict their resources and leave them unprotected in the Diaspora.

Turkey has no legal penalties for homosexual conduct, but violence against LGBT people is pervasive.[119] Although (unlike Syria and Jordan) Turkey has signed both the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, it has limited its accession to refugees of European origin, thus precluding all Iraqi refugees from government grants of asylum in Turkey.  In order to keep them out of major cities, the Turkish authorities routinely require asylum seekers and refugees to remain in secondary cities and towns where support services (and civil society organizations) are few and far between-and where a conservative social climate puts LGBT people at risk of discrimination and abuse.[120](Partly due to these restrictions, Turkey now hosts only 8,300 Iraqi refugees.)[121]

Meanwhile, although Jordan also has no criminal penalties for homosexual conduct, the social and political climate is still more repressive than Turkey's. One man described how Jordanian security forces blackmailed and illegally expelled him in 2008 because of his sexual orientation:

    My situation in Jordan was completely legal. I had a work visa and a legal job, and I had just registered with the UNHCR, where they gave me a card with a number. Then the Jordanian mukhabarat [security] called me on the phone.  "We want to see you." I thought, maybe they knew I went to some gay parties, or saw me at a particular mosque and thought I was an extremist or something.

    They asked me: "Are you gay?" I said, no. They said: "Yes you are." I gave the [UNHCR] card to the mukhabarat and showed them the legality of my visa. They said, "We don't care. You are a mennyak  [fucker], a faggot, and we don't want you in our country."

    They twisted my arms hard behind me. They took my passport, and wanted me to inform on Iraqis in Jordan-all kinds of Iraqis, not just gay ones. They said, "Come back tomorrow."

    The next day I returned and I refused [to cooperate]. They cuffed my hands behind me and put me in a cell: "Why the fuck do you make this shame with yourself?" they asked. I said: "Never, never!"

    They took me to another jail or prison, and I spent seven or eight days there. And then they sent me back to Iraq.[122]

Syria has been generous in receiving displaced Iraqis, but its security and surveillance apparatus makes the strict legal penalties against homosexual conduct a severe threat to LGBT refugees. One man, registered with the UNHCR in Damascus-where he and a few fellow claimants received periodic support from the London-based Iraqi LGBT group in the form of money transfers-told us how security forces there deported him:

    I think someone told the mukhabarat about us. They called me to come and questioned me, asking me about Iraqi LGBT and our relationship to this organization and why they are sending us money.

    They asked if I am gay and about my relationship with my friend Munir, because we lived in the same apartment and were together a lot. I denied everything. There was a lot of verbal abuse; they were very harsh with me.  They asked me questions about people who had been visiting us-it was obvious we'd been under heavy surveillance. And then, after two days, they deported us.[123]

Their deportation almost cost his friend Munir his life. Munir recounts:

    When I was deported from Syria, the Syrians had written [on my file] that it was because I was gay. And on the Iraqi side of the border, they read that took my passport, and told me, "We will give you to the Ministry of the Interior"-and that meant instant death. The border control people said, "You were kicked out of Syria because of prostitution [di'ara] and we are going to kill you."

    They did it because they wanted money from me- $2,500 USD to give my passport back. Because my file said I was gay, I was easy pickings. I was at the Iraq border, then, for four days, without a cent. I couldn't go forward; there was a checkpoint right in front of me, and without my passport they would kill me.

    So I made a deal with the Iraqi border guards: one of them would take my passport and come with me to Baghdad, and I'd get the money together there and pay him. I called every friend I had in Baghdad and they somehow assembled the cash. He travelled all the way to Baghdad with me, and I paid him and got my passport and my right to live back.[124]

UNHCR has recognized the seriousness of persecution based on sexual orientation in Iraq. Its 2009 Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers observe that "While homosexuality is not prohibited by Iraqi law, it is a strict taboo and considered to be against Islam. Since 2003, Iraq's largely marginalized and vulnerable lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has frequently been targeted for attacks in an environment of impunity."[125]

The threats and difficulties those people face in the surrounding countries of first asylum, however, demand attention. They can only be resolved by a commitment-on the part both of the UNHCR and of Western governments that have made paper promises about refugee protection-to remove lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Iraqi claimants from danger, and resettle them expeditiously in safe countries. 

Notes

[116] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, "Iraq: Country Operations Profile, 2009," at http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e486426, accessed May 2, 2009.

[117]United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, "Iraq Situation Update," May 2009.

[118] Ibid.

[119]"We Need a Law for Liberation": Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights in a Changing Turkey, a Human Rights Watch report, 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/05/21/we-need-law-liberation-0.

[120] Human Rights Watch conducted extensive research among LGBT Iranian refugees in Turkey in 2007 and 2008. See also Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Turkey and Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration (ORAM), Unsafe Haven: The Security Challenges Facing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Turkey, a 2009 report, http://oraminternational.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Unsafe%20Haven%20Final.pdf, accessed July 10, 2009.

[121] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, "Iraq Situation Update," May 2009.

[122]Human Rights Watch interview with Hussein (not his real name), Iraq, April 23, 2009.

[123]Human Rights Watch interview with Omar (not his real name), Iraq, April 25, 2009.

[124]Human Rights Watch interview with Munir (not his real name), Iraq, April 20, 2009. Two other gay Iraqis who had lived in Syria, but had not applied for refugee status with the UNHCR, told us how Syrian police arrested them on the street in Damascus in December 2006: their story illustrates the dangers that "effeminate" foreigners may face.  The police stopped them, demanding "Are you boys or girls?"

They pulled down our pants to see what sex we were, then beat us on the street in front of everybody.  Then they took us to the Bab Mousalla police station. In a day or so, they took us to the Bashar Asad hospital, to do tests to see if we were gay.  The doctor asked us to take our pants down and we had to kneel in front of him.  He asked each of us to count to ten and inserted his thumb in the anus.  Then he said, "They're gay."

After that, it was back to the police station, and they put us each in a solitary cell as small as a WC.   Then there were three days of torture. In the morning, they beat us up and electroshocked us from 10 to 12 a.m.   At night, from 10 to midnight, we were showered in cold water and stretched with our hands and feet tied, and they whipped us. 

Then we were taken to court.  We didn't have a lawyer.   They charged us with fujur [debauchery]. The prosecutor said we had had sex with American marines and Iraqi militias back in Iraq.  The judge said: "We don't like you Iraqis; why do you come to this country?"  We were sentenced to prison for six months.   From the prison, we managed to hire a lawyer, and he got us set free, but expelled from the country.  We were expelled in February 2007, and we cannot go back for five years.  They just took us to the Iraqi border and left us there.

Human Rights Watch interview with Yehia and Abbas (not their real names), Beirut, Lebanon, July 10, 2009.  In its reporting on other countries, Human Rights Watch has documented the intrusive and abusive practice of spurious anal examinations to "prove" homosexual conduct; see In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct, a Human Rights Watch report, 2004.   As Human Rights Watch shows there, when conducted in carceral conditions without consent, such examinations constitute torture.

[125]UNHCR, Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers, April 2009, "Sexual Orientation," pp. 193-195, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49f569cf2.html, accessed May 2, 2009.

Gay Men Targeted In Iraq, Human Rights Watch Report Says

Source: Washington Post

By Ernesto Londoño

BAGHDAD, Aug. 16 -- Human Rights Watch will urge in a report to be released Monday that the Iraqi government do more to protect gay men, saying militiamen have killed and tortured scores in recent months as part of a social cleansing campaign.

Although the scope of the problem remains unclear, hundreds of gay men may have been killed this year in predominantly Shiite Muslim areas, the report's authors said, basing their conclusion on interviews with gay Iraqi men, hospital officials and an unnamed United Nations official in Baghdad.

"The government has done absolutely nothing to respond," said Scott Long, director of the gay rights program at Human Rights Watch. "So far there has been pretty much a stone wall."

Homosexuality was tacitly accepted during the last years of Saddam Hussein's rule, but Iraqis have long viewed it as taboo and shameful.

Iraq's human rights minister, Wijdan Salim, has expressed concern about the reported slayings, but few other government officials have addressed the issue publicly or indicated that they are disturbed by the reports.

A senior police official in Baghdad said authorities could not effectively protect gay men because they often do not report crimes.

"To protect someone, you have to know who he is and his location," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue. "It's very easy for the militiamen to find them and harm them, and it's very difficult for our forces to protect them."

Reports of slayings targeting gay men began circulating early this spring in Sadr City, a conservative Shiite district in eastern Baghdad. Gay men were also reportedly slain in Basra, Najaf and Diyala province, Human Rights Watch said.

Gay activists said militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had target lists containing the names of men suspected of being gay. Some were killed and some were tortured, they said. Human Rights Watch said a commonly reported form of torture involved injecting super glue into men's rectums.

When violence in Iraq began ebbing in 2008 and militia and insurgent leaders lost sway in several parts of the country, social norms became less strict. Women began to shed abayas -- long black robes that cover them from head to toe -- in certain formerly conservative neighborhoods. Liquor stores began selling alcohol openly. And gay men began to congregate in cafes and other venues for parties. The advent of the Internet in Iraq after the 2003 invasion also allowed gay men to form bonds and circles of friends.

The attacks on gay men appear to have coincided with a call by religious leaders in Sadr City and other Shiite communities to curb behavior that clerics called unnatural and unhealthy.

Sadr movement officials say they condemn homosexuality, but have denied participating in violence targeting gay men.

Sadr City residents opposed to homosexuality said in interviews that the presence of gay men became overt after the Iraqi army was allowed to move into the district in the spring of 2008, asserting control over a vast area formerly controlled by Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

"When the Iraqi army started coming here, this phenomenon started coming to our area," said Ali Abu Kara, 23, a mechanic who identified himself as a member of the Mahdi Army. "We felt very glad when those puppies were killed," he added, using a pejorative term for gay men.

Human Rights Watch said the Mahdi Army, which has been observing a cease-fire for more than a year, appears to have used the gay issue to build its image.

"It exploited morality for opportunistic purposes," the report said. "It aimed at popularity by targeting people few in Iraq would venture to defend."

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and American lawmakers have expressed concern about the reports of slayings.

"Reports from Embassy contacts familiar with the areas where some of the bodies were found suggest the killings are the work of militias who believe homosexuality is a form of Western deviance that cannot be tolerated," Patricia Butenis, then the charge d'affaires at the embassy, wrote in an April 22 letter to Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

Polis, who is openly gay, raised the issue with Iraqi and U.S. officials during a visit to Iraq this spring.

"There is no doubt that gay Iraqi men live in a constant state of terror," he said in an interview shortly after his visit. "That was not the case under Saddam Hussein's regime. And it's not the case in Jordan and Syria, where homosexuality is not accepted as it is in the West but people don't live in fear."

Long, the Human Rights Watch official, said reports of slayings and intimidation have become more infrequent in recent months as gay communities have gone underground and scores of gay men have fled their neighborhoods.

"The militias have run out of people to kill," he said.

Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report. 

• Chapter: The Situation of LGBT Iraqi Refugees
  

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UN "advises favourable consideration" for gay Iraqi asylum seekers

5 May 2009 – A drop off in levels of violence in some parts of Iraq has allowed the United Nations refugee agency to revise its guidelines on eligibility for those seeking asylum.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) previously advised that all Iraqis from the central and southern governorates be considered refugees.

In its latest recommendations, the agency believes that the international protection needs for those originating from Al-Anbar, encompassing much of the country’s western territory, and the south should be assessed on individual merit.

However, UNHCR advises favourable consideration for people belonging to specific groups from these areas which have been identified as at risk, including members of religious and ethnic minorities; Iraqis perceived as opposing armed groups or political factions; Iraqis affiliated with the multinational forces or foreign companies; media workers; UN and non-governmental organization (NGO) workers; human rights activists; and homosexuals.

The agency also stressed that ongoing violence, conflict and human rights violations in most of the central governorates of Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa and Salah Al-Din places asylum-seekers from these areas in continued need for international protection.

UNHCR estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, mainly in Syria and Jordan but also in Lebanon, Egypt and others, with over 40,000 asylum applications made in industrialized countries last year alone.

The agency stressed that improvement in the situation in Iraq is not yet sufficient enough to promote or encourage massive returns and it recommended that refugees already benefiting from international protection should retain their status.

In a related development, an Iraqi ministry has pledged $30 million for projects aimed at improving the lives of children in rural marshland areas.

With a 34 per cent illiteracy rate among women living in marshlands, compared to 24 per cent nationally, and school enrolment at least 30 per cent lower than in urban areas, and around 80 per cent of households not connected to the general water network, the marshlands has some of the worst development indicators in Iraq.

Source

Gays fleeing Iraqi pogram for Lebanon

The first time he said it, his face was so passive I didn't register what he was saying.

"Did you get that?" Georges asked me. "They raped him."

We were sitting in the courtyard of Helem, the Lebanese gay rights organization located in a beautiful French colonial building not far from downtown Beirut. Helem's director, Georges Azzi, was helping me interview a young arrival from Baghdad.

I looked back at the slender 21-year-old with the confident voice and tried to determine what invisible force was holding him upright, helping him to speak. Three weeks of rape and torture at the hands of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, followed by a month of living as a fugitive before fleeing to Lebanon would surely destroy a person, I thought.

Then again, Iraq seems to have become a laboratory for testing the limits of human endurance, and the results are always sickeningly surprising.

"What happened to the other five gay men who were with you?" I asked.

"They killed them," he said flatly. "I paid."

Hassan (not his real name) is one of a handful of gay Iraqis who have sought refuge in Lebanon since the beginning of the year, when, according to Iraqis and human rights workers interviewed for this post, some sort of understanding was reached between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army to "cleanse" Iraq of homosexuals.

According to Hassan and M.M., another gay Iraqi who fled to Jordan and eventually made his way to Lebanon, Moqtada al-Sadr was given the green light from the government to attack homosexuals after video footage of a private party attended by gays, lesbians and transsexuals began circulating Iraq. Neither had attended the party or seen the footage, but several others confirmed they had heard the rumor. The BBC recently posted a number of videos depicting homosexuals and cross dressers being harassed by security forces.

The video provided a pretext for the partially disbanded and discredited Mahdi Army to reconstitute itself as morality force. Other armed groups were not far behind.

"It's creating a competition to see who can be the most righteous, the most steeped in blood," said Scott Long, the director of the LGBT Rights division of Human Rights Watch.

Since the killings were reported in the American press several weeks ago, the Iraqi government has vociferously denied any direct involvement. But according to Hassan, who was arrested at a government checkpoint, "The government and the Mahdi Army are working together to kill [homosexuals]."

Long was also skeptical of the government's claims. He stopped by Beirut on his way back from Baghdad to check on Hassan and the other Iraqis who have contacted Helem since arriving in Lebanon.

"[The Ministry of Interior] went very ostentatiously to the New York Times and said 'gays are being targeted in Sadr City," Long said. "That's for show; the reality is they are at minimum turning a blind eye."

Long, along with another Human Rights Watch researcher, Rasha Moumneh, went to Iraq to investigate reports of organized campaign against homosexuality and other forms of gender deviation.

"It's difficult to navigate sensationalist stories about gay violence In the Middle East, because they often serve political ends," said Moumneh. "I went in with some skepticism that it was a targeted campaign, but that changed very quickly."

"The intensity and scope of the violence was astonishing," Long added.

Although it is nearly impossible to determine an exact number of attacks that are motivated by sexual orientation, a doctor in Baghdad told Long it was in the hundreds. Morgues and hospitals are receiving more bodies of men who have been castrated, had their anuses glued shut or the word "pervert" carved into their skin, indicating they were not the victims of "ordinary" sectarian killing.

Hassan was targeted for his activism as much as his sexual orientation. Since 2005, he was been working with a London-based Iraqi LGBT rights organization to set up safe houses in Baghdad, which at one point housed over 40 individuals before the situation became so dangerous he shut them down. In 2006, he was detained and tortured briefly by the Mahdi Army, whose drug use has earned it the nicknamed the "pink army," a reference to the pink eyes of habitual hashish users.

Since coming to Lebanon, he has registered with the United Nations and is currently awaiting resettlement in the US or Europe. As a victim of torture, his file receives priority attention, but in the meantime, he must wait in a country where homosexuality is illegal and violence against gays not unheard of.

"They don't persecute people who translated for the Americans in Lebanon," said Long, explaining why homosexuals' cases should be treated differently from other Iraqi refugees.

"Of the countries surrounding Iraq, none are safe for homosexuals, so there is the added urgency of folks having to wait in countries where they are also at risk," he said.

Still, the Iraqis seem to be taking full advantage of the freedoms Lebanon does offer, often to the chagrin of Azzi, who, as director of Helem, has taken on the role of reluctant mother hen. Last week, they disappeared from his radar only to text him later from Acid, the notoriously decadent gay club just outside Beirut.

"We couldn't tell him beforehand-he would have worried about us," Hassan said, throwing his friend a sly smile. "Georges is our father, the leader of the revolution!"

"Yeah," Azzi answered, laughing. "We're the real 'pink army'."

Source

I'm Gay and Iraqi: Please Help Me!

By Michael Luongo

A contact of mine told me he came across this comment in an e-mail. The only thing more extraordinary than the message was the location. He was sitting in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad when he read it.

My contact said he was reaching out to me because things were “heating up” for gay men in Iraq. Over the years, he said he'd received several e-mails from gay Iraqis that came through the U.S. embassy’s website -- they are a “single source of frustration, because I feel completely helpless and heartbroken reading stories about an Iraqi that is sending an e-mail probably just a few miles from where I am sitting in the embassy, and telling me that there is a militia coming just down the block and they have a list.”

I traveled to Baghdad in the summer of 2007, during the height of the U.S. surge, to get a better handle on the situation for gays in Iraq. During my visit I met with a few gay Americans who worked at the embassy, all of whom spoke off-the-record when giving me quotes and providing information.

In recent months, things have certainly been "heating up" -- articles from The New York Times, the BBC, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as many other mainstream and gay publications, point to the horrors of what is happening in Iraq. Each article seems more harrowing than the last, attempting to make sense of something that's hard to fathom for the readers who digest these articles from the comfort and safety of an America where "dont ask, don't tell" and same-sex marriage make up the bulk of news coverage.

Some outlets -- particularly in the gay press -- point to reports by Iraqi LGBT, a London-based activist group reporting that gay men in Iraq are on death row and that they've received a letter from a gay Iraqi pleading for help, all of which has been next to impossible to verify. Others point to the reassertion of power by militias, particularly in Sadr City, a Shia slum within Baghdad where the Mahdi Army has for years engaged in a reign of terror against locals and the U.S. military.

In addition to the direct killings of gay men by the militia was the report of a fire-bombing of a neighborhood café popular among gay men. Still more articles look to the influence of militias in combination with family honor killings -- gay men who have been thrown out into the streets to fend for their safety, or Iraqis who have killed gay family members.

The most disturbing report comes from the Arab-language news source Alarabiya, describing the torture and killing of at least seven gay men who have had their anuses closed using a special glue, with Iraqi officers having forced them to take a medicine inducing diarrhea and death. While the English-language media has conflicting reports on what is happening in Iraq, this report, created by those who speak the language and have the best resources to interview local political and religious officials, gives perhaps the best indication of how terrible the situation has become for LGBT Iraqis.

In the course of my work, I often come across horrific stories like these. I am a journalist, not an activist, so the priority is to cover them -- still, people often ask what they can do. The answer is to put the pressure on Washington -- to show our leaders this is a serious topic -- one that needs their attention now.

As a child, I grew up in a neighborhood where many of my friends were the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Because of the direct connection to this historical event, it always baffled me when we would learn in school of American indifference to the 1930s buildup to that era. Certainly, reading about overseas suffering can seem an abstraction, whether 70 years ago or today. Yet, whether today or then, how many people could have been saved by writing letters, contacting politicians, or by directly sending money to organizations which aid refugees?

Though what is going on in Iraq with gay persecution is not at the same level of the Holocaust, the major difference is that the reign of terror is the direct result of the U.S. invasion, which completely changed the balance of power, unleashing the situation that exists today. In addition to the impact on the LGBT community, the refugee situation in Iraq impacts literally millions of people who have had to flee their homes since 2003.

My visit in 2007 lasted a month, with interviews in both the safer Kurdish region as well as Baghdad. Even with a direct visit trying to look at facts on the ground, it was hard to parse what exactly was going on. Iraq is a place wracked by violence, where even gathering information can be deadly. Killings of gay men are often random -- seen as a side effect of living in Baghdad. Signs someone is gay -- long hair and stylish clothes -- are often the signs one is Westernized, an excuse for murder by those bent on overthrowing the occupation. It is also apparent that men who are stereotypically gay are targets for abduction and murder, even at military checkpoints our own government has established throughout the city.

Scott Long, who heads the LGBT division of Human Rights Watch, is currently in Iraq aiding gay men seeking refuge. He told me via e-mail that “I spoke today to a gay man who escaped Baghdad after multiple attempts by armed men to abduct him off the street. He was almost speechless with terror.”

Long added, “There’s obviously an enormous moral burden upon the U.S. for creating a climate in which violence against all kinds of vulnerable groups could metastasize with impunity. That doesn't detract from the responsibility of the government of an independent Iraq to institute rule of law and protect all its own population.”

As Americans looking into this issue from the relative safety of our own lives, we must ask what responsibility the United States bears and what can be done to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Baghdad under Saddam was a cosmopolitan city with a relative tolerance toward gays as part of the fabric of society. Saddam even kept a network of gay spies to sleep with gay foreign diplomats and extract secrets, perhaps the strongest acknowledgement of gay culture before the occupation.

But the invasion changed all of that, wiping out the cosmopolitan society, with gay culture, music, art, women in the workforce, and other factors under attack as militias and religious leaders asserted power in the chaos.

Openly gay U.S. congressman Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, visited Iraq in early April and found in his discussions by phone with gay Iraqi men that “many fondly reminisced about life under Saddam.”

He said most gay people are closeted, as they are in places like Jordan and Syria, where many gay Iraqis, among other refugees, have fled to escape violence and, in many cases, await asylum. These countries do not have perfect LGBT rights records, Polis commented, but “at the very least, [gay citizens] don’t live in constant fear for their lives.”

Polis’s findings mirror the comments made by the gay men I met in Iraq. It is not hard to argue that the locus of responsibility for the deaths of gay men in Iraq lies squarely with the U.S. decision to invade the country. The occupation changed the political structure of the country, creating a power vacuum that led to the rise of a militant insurgency, using Islamic fundamentalism as a cover for its horrific deeds.

No matter one’s opinion of the war, the question is what to do now. According to Polis, there are “some friendly elements in the Iraqi government,” but the “problem is the breakdown of the chain of command and the failure of duty to protect their lesbian, gay, and transgendered citizens.” His visit was a way “to make sure our government is aware of the issue and raise the issue with our counterparts in Iraq.”

The recent killings reflect a dilemma in U.S. policy. The situation in Iraq is overall significantly safer than it was during my 2007 visit. By suppressing the militant and religious elements, the surge created a more vibrant Baghdad, more akin to the cosmopolitan society that once existed. Shops have reopened, artists are displaying in galleries again, women are returning to work, and young couples have begun to hold hands again in parks that dot the city. But the safety induced by the surge has also allowed for a more visible presence of Baghdad’s gay community, and with this has come the resurgence of the once-discredited militant groups, particularly the Mahdi Army based out of Sadr City.

According to my contact at the embassy, “our local staff, some of whom live in Sadr City, have told us that word on the streets is that this is the work of JAM,” referring to the Mahdi Army. He emphasized these are “not tribal and not familial disputes.” My contact explained that since the surge, the security situation has improved and militant groups have been suppressed, leading to the Mahdi Army saying they are not “there protecting the virtues of the community; this is why guys are coming out now -- they’re starting to act more Western, they’re acting more effeminate.”

"The impression is that these incidents are a way for these JAM elements to reassert their presence in a way that is culturally acceptable.” As the surge has discredited them, “they have to take issues overall that make them look legitimate, and the culture being what it is in this part of the world, Iraq in this case, in their minds, this is a legitimate cause, rooting out homosexuality.”

Under the Obama administration, a similar surge will be conducted in Afghanistan, diverting resources from one occupied country to another. Ultimately, the United States will leave Iraq. While a new government exists within the country, how long it will hold up without the U.S. presence remains to be seen. Perhaps we can look at gays in Iraq as canaries in a coal mine, an indication of what is to come in a future Iraq. The absence of American and other international forces may lead again to the deadly chaos that existed just after the invasion.

The question now for gay Americans is, What can we do? Myriad organizations are focused on the issue, from Iraqi LGBT to Human Rights Watch to the San Francisco–based Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration, whose executive director Neil Grungras said, “Even if the West is helpless to stop the antigay terror in Iraq, the U.S. and other enlightened nations can save the lives of thousands of gays who will otherwise be returned to certain death. In 2008 the U.S. accepted over 12,000 Iraqi refugees. In 2009 it intends to take in 17,000. We are urging the U.S. and other traditional resettlement countries to set aside sufficient slots to save these vulnerable refugees' lives.”

My contact in Baghdad told me that “arguments have been made for expanding the refugee program, to allow for processing of minority groups such as LGBT Iraqis at the American embassy in Baghdad. But there are other minority groups -- Christians, women, Sunnis who live in and are surrounded by Shiite communities, Shiites surrounded by Sunnis -- that face just as great a threat and danger.”

He added, “Requests for help that come our way do not go unnoticed or unheard. But making public any effort to assist gay Iraqis is precarious because we are operating in what remains -- relative to the rest of the world -- a very conservative society. It is suspected that the Sadr City murders carried out earlier this month were by militias and conservative elements within Iraqi society, which tend to be anti-American to begin with. If the U.S. government is publicly seen by these groups as putting pressure on the government of Iraq, that will, quite possibly, make things worse for gay Iraqis.”

It is clear though that in another occupied country, Afghanistan, outside international pressure can change things. Afghanistan recently approved what has come to be called the "marriage rape law," interpreted to mean that men can force their wives to have sex with them and deny them the right to leave the home without permission. It seemed something that the Taliban would pass, not an elected U.S.–backed government. An international uproar ensued, along with the implicit threat that billions of dollars in aid would be denied Afghanistan if the law were not reexamined.

Polis suggests using those “friendly elements in the Iraqi government” to work on gay issues. The importance of this ultimately will be similar to what was experienced in Afghanistan on women’s issues, and he said, “The eyes of the international human rights community will judge Iraq by how they treat those who face discrimination in their society.”

My contact at the embassy told me to let readers of The Advocate know that “if there is any piece of advice I can give our community and those who care about the plight of gay Iraqis, it is this: Put pressure on Washington to do more, put pressure on your government. The only way our leaders ever know something is serious is when we stand up and show just how serious we are about it.” He added, “If these killings in what remains a war zone don't show the world that people do not choose at their leisure to be persecuted, I don't know what will.”

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Global Gaze: When Falling in (Same-Sex) Love is a Crime

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By Jolly

In the last installment of the Global Gaze series, in which we looked at the gay rights struggle in sub-Saharan Africa, I alluded to the fact that one of the issues that gay rights activists struggle with is the criminalization of homosexuality in many parts of the world. I also referenced a declaration in the UN about LGBT rights. In the time since writing that, I’ve been thinking more and more about the phenomenon of criminalized homosexuality around the world and how easily taken for granted this issue can be in modern queer community in the US and throughout the West. What follows is a look at what it means when being gay is illegal around the world

In terms of the international community as a whole, UN documents and institutions are fairly quiet on the issue of criminalized homosexuality. This isn’t that surprising, since such instruments rarely address issues affecting sexual minorities around the world in general. While this may seem like a simple matter of terminology or oversight, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, put it best when he said, “We know that when a community is left out of the mainstream of international life, it is very difficult for its members to preserve even the most elementary human rights.”

The United Nations Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which was sponsored by the French, backed by the European Union and presented to the UN General Assembly in December, is meant to address this. Article 11 of the declaration says, “We urge States to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.”

This proposal, of course, resulted in intense debate within the UN. First of all, it should be noted that General Assembly declarations, unlike international treaties and conventions, are legally non-binding. This means that states aren’t actually bound by it if they sign it, though approval does have significant symbolic and rhetorical value. 66 states, including all of the members of the EU and other Western countries, except for the US, signed it right away. The Obama administration has already said that the US will sign the declaration in the near future.

Shortly after its presentation, the Vatican joined many Arab and African states in criticizing the declaration. In a formal statement, 57 countries emphasized many common arguments against having human rights for homosexuals, namely that it could lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia,” and that the criminalization of homosexuality is a domestic issue and therefore interfering in such policies violates the sovereignty of individual states.

Until the original declaration passes or is superseded by a legally binding document, scholars like Phillip Tahmindjis have pointed out that any norm regarding sexual orientation “has to be gleaned by inferences drawn from language addressed to issues of non-discrimination in the way they are implemented.” This is exactly what happened in 1994 when the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that the criminalization of homosexuality and homosexual acts is a violation of international non-discrimination laws in the famous case known as Toonen v. Australia. The case was brought by Nicholas Toonen, an Australian man who was challenging anti-sodomy laws in Tasmania, the last region of Australia to enforce such a law. The HRC ruled that passing different laws for gay men regarding sexual activity was a violation of international law because it made gay men unequal before the law and in terms of its implementation.

Despite this interpretation of international law, as of this moment homosexuality and/or homosexual acts remain illegal in 77 countries and are considered offenses punishable by death in seven: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Yemen. (As a matter of perspective, it’s important to remember that anti-sodomy laws weren’t overturned country-wide in the US until 2003 when the decision in Lawrence v. Texas was handed down). This criminalization is not, in most countries, merely an antiquated law which is no longer enforced, but rather legislation which is actively supported and carries serious punishments. In fact, countries throughout the international community continue to pass additional and increasingly harsh laws against homosexuality and homosexual acts as a backlash against greater condemnation of such policies.

A recent example of this can be found in Jamaica. Last month, despite international and domestic pressure, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Godling supported a new sexual offenses bill and promised to “protect” the country from homosexuality. “We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organizations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalize the laws as it relates to buggery,” Golding told Parliament. As I mentioned last time, Burundi, among other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has also made a bid toward criminalizing homosexuality and passing tougher laws as well.

While all of this legal jargon is important and has an impact on individuals around the world, it’s also vital to take a look at the roles these laws play in people’s everyday lives. The Middle East is a region which I haven’t directly addressed yet in a Global Gaze column. The region contains, however, one of the most compelling stories regarding the impact that anti-gay laws have on sexual minorities around the world.

Israel stands with only Jordan, Turkey, and Cyprus as countries in the region in which homosexuality is legal. Israel goes beyond this and is considered the leader in terms of LGBT rights in the area. This creates a very real dilemma of identity for Palestinian sexual minorities living in areas such as Gaza and West Bank. In one of the most dramatic embodiments of the conflict between multiple identities that all LGBT people feel to some degree, young gay and lesbian LGBT Palestinians are forced to choose between living with their families and communities and hiding their sexuality in the face of anti-gay laws, or sneaking into Israel where the laws are much more tolerant and risking deportation and harassment due to their ethnic identity.

And the situation only gets more complicated as Israel’s relationship with its neighbors fluctuates, meaning it gets harder and harder to enter the country at all. Also, these young men and women cannot apply for asylum because Israel interprets international refugee law, and therefore asylum policies, to read that they do not apply to Palestinian nationals.

This scenario, as sad as it is, also shows the power that coming together as a global community can have. Despite their obvious differences, Israeli gay rights groups have helped to protect LGBT Palestinians and keep them in the country as best they can. As Hagai El-Ad, an Israeli gay rights activist, said in an interview last year: “The struggle for our rights is worthless if it’s indifferent to what’s happening to [gays in the occupied Palestinian territories] a kilometer from here.”

So what can the international community do about this issue? Encouraging states to sign the declaration before the UN is important, of course. Usually in the case of a declaration, national NGOs in signatory countries can use such an action to hold countries to their word and encourage them to fully implement the ideals enshrined in the declaration in their domestic legal systems. In this case, however, this strategy is less effective, as most of the signatories have already abolished their anti-gay laws. The focus, therefore, must be on trans-national advocacy to get additional states to agree to sign on.

The UN Human Rights Committee, the body which ruled in the Toonen case, now routinely requests information from states regarding what they’re doing to prevent, address, and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation domestically. It urges states not only to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality but to go a step further and prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in their constitutions and laws. States and activists should support this work and encourage it to continue.

Beyond this, it’s up the international queer community to stay vigilant and monitor individual states for abuses. When your very existence is considered a crime against the state, not much hope exists for living a free or open life. It’s up to all of us to remain mindful of our LGBT brothers and sisters across the globe and support them in any way possible until we can achieve a world in which we are all free to be who we are.

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