Activists call for UK and US protests
Taken From UK Gay News
LONDON, July 13, 2010 – Hard on the heels of an Iraqi police raid on a Kerbala ‘safe house’ for gays, run by the London-based Iraqi LGBT, comes news that there has been another raid – on a Baghdad male beauty parlour, with five men arrested.
Iraqi LGBT reported this evening that five gay mean were seized by “Interior Ministry forces” in the raid on June 25.
The latest raid was on a house used as a business for services such as waxing and massage in the Baghdad district of Karada.
Such services have long been used in a country with a body building tradition.
Iraqi media coverage, which included three days of TV reports, however described the house as used for prostitution, according to Iraqi LGBT.
However, witnesses have told Iraqi LGBT that this was not the case. Neither waxing nor massage is illegal in Iraq however it is ‘forbidden’ by Shia clerics.
Despite claims to the contrary, homosexuality is illegal in Iraq, and it is on this basis that the raid happened and the men were arrested, the London group claims.
The house was managed by Sabah and the workers arrested are Ehsan, Samer, Alaha and Mustafa.
Eyewitnesses who were outside the building say Ministry of Interior forces raided at 3pm. Those on rooftops heard screams for help and saw the men being severely beaten by uniformed men carrying cattle prods.
They say one was taken into custody on a stretcher, Iraqi LGBT reports.
One of the eyewitnesses who spoke with Amnesty International has since disappeared.
Iraqi LGBT has received no information about where the men were taken. However, previous seizures of gays, lesbians and transgender people have resulted in them being handed to religious militia and their subsequent torture. Often this is followed by the discovery of their mutilated bodies.
An Iraqi online news site quoted “security sources” in a local newspaper [report in Arabic]saying: “After gathering evidence and information the police issued an order from a judge to raid the house where the house-owner of the shop and a number of gay, mostly college students were caught red-handed, and have confessed openly their shameful work which is contrary to public decency, they were seduced by the devil to commit these acts.”
The newspaper went on to say that forces had “captured a laptop computer and CDs from a pornographic network”.
This evening, Iraqi LGBT is calling on the British and American governments to follow the lead of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and investigate – and condemn – the raids.
However, Iraqi LGBT notes that in her latest speech outlining the American government’s support for oppressed LGBT people throughout the world, made just two days before the latest known raid, , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to mention Iraq.
Iraqi LGBT is scheduled to meet the British Foreign Office tomorrow (Wednesday) and will press for an investigation and public condemnation by Minister William Hague of this latest attack on their friends by the Iraqi government.
The Foreign Office’s latest Human Rights Report accepts Iraqi government claims that “homosexuality is not a criminal offence in Iraq”.
“It is past time for the British and Americans to publicly condemn what they know are the actions of the Iraqi government,” Ali Hili told UK Gay News this evening.
“Hundreds of lesbians and gays have been killed to near silence by the world,” he said.
“What needs to happen – what can we do – before the world pays any attention, and before people start pressing their leaders to tell the Iraqi government to stop? What? We plead for an answer.,” he said in desperation.
“We know why politicians would rather people forgot about what is happening in Iraq. But Iraqi lesbians, gay men and transgender people particularly feel that they have been forgotten by their fellow LGBT, especially those in power in the West. Why?”
Over the past five years, Iraqi LGBT has documented 738 deaths of LGBT persons.
Iraqi LGBT is a human rights organisation that was established in September 2005 after the rise of wave of violence against the LGBT community in Iraq.
“We felt it is our responsibility to stand up and start an action to alert the world on this genocide, with members working secretly undercover in Iraq, the UK and other countries,” Mr. Hili said.
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