Gay Men Killed in Iraq

A 67-page report by the Human Rights Watch in Beirut details a shocking trend moving across Iraq. Gay men are being rounded up, tortured and killed while the government stands by.

Men are being targeted by militias for their appearance, such as the length of their hair and the fit of their clothes. Their corpses are dumped in the garbage or hung on the street as a warning.

The killing is most intense in Baghdad, but it is also occurring in other parts of Iraq. Without fear of punishment, the killers invade homes, abducting men suspected of homosexuality. The men are interrogated and brutalized, their mutilated bodies left in the neighborhood the next day.

The failure of authorities to investigate makes reliable figures on how many have been killed unattainable, although the report claims that “hundreds” may have been killed. Despite pleas from gay activists for the Obama administration to step in and “save” Iraqi and *Iranian homosexuals, there is little that can be done.

“Given that one of the stereotypes of LGBT folk in Iraq is that they’re a product of Western influence, calls for the U.S. to somehow take them under its real or rhetorical wing are not likely to be very productive in terms of their safety,” says the author of the report, Scott Long.

Source: http://renovomedia.com/world-news/gay-men-being-tortured-and-killed-in-iraq/