Gay bodies pile up in Baghdad

[NorthCarolina]

(Baghdad) The bodies of two gay men have been found in Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City after a leading cleric repeatedly condemned homosexuality, an Iraqi police official said Saturday.

The killings come after Shiite cleric Sattar al-Battat repeatedly condemned homosexuality during recent Friday prayers, saying Islam prohibits homosexuality. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq.

The two men were believed killed Thursday by relatives who were shamed by their behavior, said the official. Police said they suspected the killings were at the hands of family members because no one has claimed the bodies or called for an investigation.

The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four bodies in late March buried near Sadr City with the words “pervert” and “puppies” written on their chests, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Puppy is a derogatory word used by residents in Sadr City to refer to homosexuals, the official said.

Sadr City, a slum of about two million people, is home to a large majority of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Al-Sadr’s forces launched several uprisings against American forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, but fighting ended in Sadr City in May 2008.

“When the Mahdi army was in control, such practices were banned, and homosexuals were afraid of declaring their tendencies,” the official said. But that’s changed since the Mahdi Army militia cease fire took hold, the official said. The official said some people claim a coffee shop in Sadr City has become a hangout for gay men.

Sheik Ammar al-Saadi, a cleric at al-Sadr’s office, denied any involvement by the Mahdi army in the killings. He said the Mahdi Army was only urging people to stop practicing homosexuality.

“Such people have brought shame on Sadr city people,” he told The Associated Press. “The blame falls on the security forces who do little to combat this phenomenon or to stop the flow of pornography materials into Iraq.”

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The post can be read in it's entirety here: http://www.365gay.com/news/gay-bodies-pile-up-in-baghdad/

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. We haven't bothered to stop the bigotry and murders here in the US

Why does anyone think we can stop the bigotry and murders in other countries?

[patrice]

2. One wonders how these fellows would have fared had we not INVADED.

And what kinds of responses the GLBT community and others might contemplate, especially in the prevailing climate of various types of socially acceptable BIGOTRY: anti-GLBT Bigotry, anti-Liberal Bigotry, anti-Black Bigotry, anti-Peace Bigotry, anti-Islamic Bigotry . . .

Just trying to hypothesize how these various factors might triangulate.

[patrice]

3. P.S. The cross-over phenomenon is NOT dead, especially if someone has somekind of Power.

[noiretextatique]

6. Gay Iraqis Fared Better Under Saddam

yet another travesty because of bush, inc's war profiteering.

http://gaymiddleeast.blogspot.com/2006/04/gay-iraqis-fared-better-under-saddam_12.html

[sui generis]

4. it's a damn shame we haven't learned to speak violence back

As long as we're easy pickings our weaker cousins will be hunted.

Advice: if you know you're gonna go, take a few with you.

It makes me sick -

But here's a better one:

I'm willing to destroy Iraq unless it improves its human rights record. I don't care if one "slips by" and somebody kills another one of us queers - you fuck up, you're gone.

Make them police themselves. If they don't think anything about killing in the name of Allah I sure as hell don't in the name of human rights. Yeah, the better demons of my nature are speaking. There's an angel in there too somewhere, cringing.

[Mithreal]

5. Petition thanks to Ian David. Sign it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/iraqgay/petition-sign.html