Ali Hili, an exiled gay Iraqi living in London, protests efforts by the British government to deport gay asylum seekers in this May 2006 photo. Hili told the Blade this week that gays living in Iraq are being ‘assassinated by religious fanatics.’ (Photo by Brett Lock/OutRage)
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JOSHUA LYNSEN
Friday, January 19, 2007
President Bush’s plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq will do little to stop the death squads that continue to hunt gays, according to exiled gay Iraqis and organizations monitoring the violence there.
Gay Iraqi citizens have been the victims of increased attacks and killings since the U.S. invasion began in 2003, insiders told the Blade.
“Before the invasion, we never experienced any kind of trouble being gay in Iraq,” said Ali Hili, an exiled gay Iraqi living in London. “Saddam was a tyrant. But while he was in power, discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. There was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated by religious fanatics.”
An unknown but reportedly substantial number of gay Iraqis have died since Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a top Shiite cleric, called on his followers in October 2005 to kill gays in “the worst, most severe way” possible.
Sistani, an influential figure in contemporary Iraq, later removed the command from his web site. But the order apparently stands, and attacks and killings of gay Iraqis continue to be reported.
“For the foreseeable future, Iraq will remain very unsafe for lesbians and gays,” said Peter Tatchell, spokesperson for the British gay rights group OutRage.
Monitoring organizations said the violence would continue until U.S. forces and Iraq’s fledgling government regain control of a country torn by civil war. Progress in securing the country has been slow, with the number of U.S. casualties now past 3,000. In December, the Iraq Study Group, a 10-member bipartisan group appointed by Congress to assess the war, announced its findings by saying, in short, a change in course is sorely needed.
Scott Long, the gay rights program director at Human Rights Watch, said Iraqi officials cannot address the targeted violence until the country’s “general violence and social breakdown” is remedied.
“The violence targeting gays is one part of a breakdown of society and laws across the board,” he said. “There’s not going to be any end to those killings unless the violence as a whole can be controlled and the rule of law established.”
Hossein Alizadeh, a gay Iranian living in the U.S. in political asylum and working for the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, agreed.
“Ending the widespread sectarian and political violence is the necessary first step to protecting Iraqi civilians,” he said, “especially Iraqi homosexuals.”
Continued strife expected
But the activists said Bush’s plan will do little to end the sectarian and political strife.
Alizadeh said the 2003 invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum — one that continues to undermine official attempts to establish a viable social and political order to replace Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“This failure has turned Iraq into a lawless land,” he said, “where various militias, insurgents, criminals, and, in short, anyone with military force, took charge.”
The chaos empowered religious figures, such as Sistani, who have encouraged violence against gays. Death squads formed by Shiite Islamic militias now routinely threaten, kidnap and assassinate gay Iraqis, sources said.
Some militias have gone so far as to use internet chat rooms established by gay Iraqis to arrange to meet gays in Baghdad and other cities. Unsuspecting gays ensnared by this tactic are abducted and killed, according to rights groups.
Gay Iraqis living in exile have told gay rights groups that conditions are so bad that entire categories of men — including those who are unmarried or seen as effeminate — are suspected of being gay and subject to death threats.
Hili said gays cannot turn to Iraqi police for protection.
“Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia,” he said. “They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity.”
Hili condemned the U.S. for not doing more to protect gay Iraqis, adding that they now live in fear, protected neither by their own government nor U.S. forces.
“The United States government has an obligation to protect every Iraqi,” he said. “Whether they are gay or not, they are human first.”
U.S. response criticized
Hili is not alone in his criticism of U.S. policy. Several gay rights groups have lambasted the Bush administration for not doing more to help gay Iraqis.
State Department officials said in a May letter to the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission that they were “troubled” by the violence, and were open to “further dialogue” on the issue.
But Alizadeh said no U.S. agency has since taken “tangible action” to improve the situation.
“The U.S. and its allies are both legally and morally responsible for the ongoing anti-LGBT violence in Iraq, and therefore curtailing it,” he said. “Under international law, the occupiers have a responsibility to protect the civilian population, and therefore it is their duty to ensure the wellbeing of Iraqi homosexuals.”
Military officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq previously told the Blade that they’re working to stop all violence, including acts targeting gay Iraqis, but face a “massive, massive concerted effort.”
Long said although the new troops going to Iraq will provide some relief, they’re unlikely to have a substantial effect on the plight of gay Iraqis.
“The overall violence is simply not likely to abate,” he said. “In that climate of lawlessness and impunity, violence against gays will continue.”
Experts said it could take a far greater number of troops — perhaps as many as 500,000 total — to fully secure Iraq and protect all its citizens.
But Long noted such a drastically increased U.S. troop presence would be ill received, and harm gay Iraqis in the long run.
“A violent campaign to suppress the militias in the short term would risk increasing sectarian divisions that would only lead to renewed and intensified vengeance campaigns and violence once U.S. troops were drawn down or departed.”
In the absence of an immediate solution, gay groups are doing what they can to protect gay Iraqis.
OutRage is imploring Western countries to provide asylum. Human Rights Watch is posting detailed warnings in Arabic to sites frequented by gay Iraqis.
A recent report in GQ magazine detailed a new “gay underground railroad” of safe houses where gay and transgender Iraqis can hide while awaiting smugglers to take them to other parts of the world and seek asylum.
The efforts are helping some Iraqis, but experts said many gays remain in danger.
“Beyond such intensive individual warnings, the only long-term solution is to achieve a political solution that pacifies the country,” Long said. “And frankly, after almost four years of consistently bungling the occupation and transition, it gets more and more difficult for the U.S. to do anything to help bring a quick end to the civil war at this juncture.”
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