This week, our correspondent in the United States, Doug Ireland, devoted his column to the murders organized campaigns that target homosexuals in Iraq.
One of the most tragic consequences of the war in Iraq and the American occupation, that the press across the Atlantic does not address, is the murderous campaign against homosexuals Iraqis. For more than two years, death squads anti-homo Shiites routinely kidnap and murder those they believe to be gay, lesbian or transgender.
This campaign of "sexual cleansing" taking place under the authority of a religious order. In October 2005, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites, issued a fatwa. There sommait his followers to kill homosexuals "in the worst possible way and the most severe possible. Most of the anti-gay murders are the work of the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). It is none other than the largest political party whose adherents Shiite Grand Ayatollah Sistani is the supreme guide.
Militias paid by Iran, and then integrated into the police
Until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the headquarters of SCIRI was based in Iran. It is also Tehran which, until last year, paid the Badr Brigades militia, armed to the teeth. In August 2004, the American Time magazine revealed he held official Iraqi documents showing that 11,270 soldiers of the Badr Brigades were indeed being paid by Tehran. In its edition of February 17, 2006, the french newspaper Le Monde cited a close advisor of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the parliamentarian Ali Debbagh, who confirmed this information. We also know that Iraq, the Badr Brigades have copied all the tactics of the anti-gay campaign being waged by the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.
But last year, those brigades have been officially incorporated into the Ministry of Interior of Iraq. A disaster because their death squads carry out anti-gay crimes since their uniforms of Iraqi police and have full police powers. In other words, they can kill homosexuals with impunity.
Summary executions after mock trials
The existence of this campaign of murder was confirmed last year by the United Nations in the bimonthly report published on January 16, 2007 on human rights in Iraq by the Assistance Mission of the United Nations in Iraq (UNAMI ). Thus, the campaign "violent" and "assassinations" of homosexuals have "intensified" in 2006. The report also mentions "religious courts controlled by Shiite clerics where suspected homosexuals are" judged "," condemned to death ", then killed… The trial, presided over by mullahs young and inexperienced, are held in rooms ordinary . "
The association Iraqi LGBT (for lesbians, gay men, bi-sexual and transgender), founded in London in November 2005 by 30 gay Iraqi exiles, brings together members and supporters of illegal everywhere in Iraq. To this day, she was able to identify more than 400 murders of homosexuals Iraqi victims of the death squads. But this figure is only the tip of the iceberg. Because of the chaos prevailing in the country, gathering evidence of the killings is almost mission impossible and can cost lives. Homophobia ambient, shame and fear felt by the families of the victims do not help homosexual. Like the limited financial resources of the association.
Activists anti-homophobic targeted
According to Ali Hili, a gay 33-year-old Iraqi, a former employee of the Iraqi radio, a volunteer who coordinates the activities of the Iraqi LGBT in London, "the Badr Brigades militants today highlights of police powers, trap by gays Internet, in chat-rooms. They make an appointment with the target then the beating and killing. Men who are not married at 30 or 35 years are placed under surveillance as suspected of being gay. Just like men ever so slightly effeminate. They were warned that they should get married. The Badr Brigades give them a month to change their behaviour. But if they do not or do not give assurances of their future marriage, they are arrested. They then disappear and are eventually found dead. Their bodies were found blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the neck. "
If the death squads anti-gay identify an individual suspected of working with the Iraqi LGBT, it becomes a prime target. A blow was asséné November 9, 2007 to the association when five of its clandestine activists were abducted during a raid occurred during a secret meeting in the al-Shaab district of Baghdad.
At a time when unknown persons broke into the room, the militants were on the telephone with Ali Hili. "Suddenly I heard the sound of the door being depressed, cries and then the telephone came to a halt" testifies he says. "It took me 24 hours to find out what had happened. Finally, I was able to join another member of our network in Baghdad who told me that all the guys were arrested. The neighbours of the apartment where the meeting was being held had seen it all. The raid was the work of members of the Badr Brigades wearing uniforms of the Interior Ministry. Since then, the families, friends and colleagues of our five members have been unable to get news of their relatives who are presumed dead. "
The Iraqi LGBT maintains two homes "fallback" in isolated farms in the vicinity of Baghdad where there are 40 gay refugees threatened with death by the Brigades. Three months ago, the association still had three other houses of this kind in southern Iraq, but it was forced to close for lack of resources. Several people who were sheltered there have since been killed.
Mothers throat cutting because of their children
The Iraqi LGBT also tries to save children who are victims of criminal gangs who force prostitutes. The voice of Ali Hili me when sanglote tells the story of two lesbians, members of the association, who ran a house "fallback" in Najaf for children wanting to stop prostitution. "The Badr Brigades have accused these two brave women to be mothers-maquerelles and keep a brothel. During a raid on their house last year, they were throat cutting, ransacked their house and the children returned to the streets to sell their bodies again. " The brother of Ali Hili, who worked in Baghdad for the association and worked to identify the murders of homosexuals was himself executed a few months ago because of his pro-gay activism.
"Under Saddam" echoes Ali Hili, "the lives of gays and lesbians was not easy but it was much better than today. There were some boxes gay in Baghdad and, once a week, we had a night dancing to Hotel Palestine, which drew the entire homosexual community. All that was banned in 1993 after the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq. I myself was arrested three times because of my homosexuality. But at least it does not kill us under Saddam. Since the American occupation, the life of a gay in Iraq is not worth anything because, with the backing of Washington, the Shiite fundamentalists are the law in my country, where every day or almost kills on the homos. "
It is well known that since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, the Americans are the court's Grand Ayatollah Sistani and SCIRI, the two Shiite powers that orchestrate the campaign of "sexual cleansing". And Washington does not want to offend the protecting homosexuals. The Americans are complicit Shiite authority in Iraq. "It's shocking! "Protests Ali Hili. "It does not with the American values of democracy. America has spent so much money and so much blood flow to produce not a fundamentalist state? I can not believe that was what it really wanted the American people. "
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