Iraqi police 'killed 14-year-old boy for being homosexual'
In George Bush's new Iraq a 14 year old boy has been shot on his doorstep by the Iraqi police for the crime of being gay.
Ahmed Khalil was shot by men in uniform his neighbours said.
Grand Ayatollah Sistani recently announced a fatwa on his website calling for the execution of gays in "the worst, most severe way".Campaign groups have warned of a surge in homophobic killings by state security services and religious militias following an anti-gay and anti-lesbian fatwa issued by Iraq's most prominent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Ali Hili, the co-ordinator of a group of exiled Iraqi gay men who monitor homophobic attacks inside Iraq, said the fatwa had instigated a "witch-hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis, including violent beatings, kidnappings and assassinations".
"Young Ahmed was a victim of poverty," he said. "He was summarily executed, apparently by fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police."
Neighbours in al-Dura district say Ahmed's father was arrested and interrogated two days before his son's murder by police who demanded to know about Ahmed's sexual activities. It is believed Ahmed slept with men for money to support his poverty-stricken family, who have fled the area fearing further reprisals.
The US forces, who are increasingly dependent on Sistani to prevent a revolt amongst the Shias, are unwilling to intervene on behalf of Iraq's gay community even though they are aware that attacks on them have intensified.
Last September a transsexual was burned to death by Badr militias and another gay man was shot in the head.
This is the reality of the new Iraq George Bush has created. A place of religious intolerance where minorities are openly persecuted.
Of course, there are some who will argue that it was ever thus. To them I would ask, why did more than two thousand Americans lay down their lives to "liberate" Iraq and establish a "democracy" if we are left with an even worse theological hellhole than the Iraq that existed under Saddam?
Saddam's Iraq was, at least, secular. It would appear that Bush has managed to replace it with something worse.
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