Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target

Shia militiamen have found a new target on the streets of George Bush's newly democratic Iraq. They are now targeting the "immorals", meaning that they are carrying out ruthless assaults on gay men and also on boys as young as eleven, who have been sold into the sex trade as an inevitable result of the horrendous unemployment in Iraq since the launch of the war.

What's more disturbing is that, as these Shia militiamen patrol the streets and brutally murder anyone who they suspect might be homosexual, they are actually committing no crime under Iraq's new laws:

Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

Are these the values of the new democracy that Bush wishes to export across the rest of the Middle East?

Graphic photos obtained from Baghdad sources too frightened to identify themselves as having known a gay man, and seen by the Observer, show other gay Iraqis who have been executed. One shows two men, suspected of having a relationship, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs - guns at the ready behind their heads - awaiting execution. Another picture captured on a mobile phone shows a gay man being beaten to death. Yet another shows a corpse being dragged through the streets after his execution.

One photograph is of the mutilated, burnt body of 38-year-old Karar Oda from Sadr City. He was kidnapped by the Badr Brigade in mid-June. They work with the Ministry of Interior and are the informal armed wing of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who make up the largest Shia bloc in the Iraq parliament. Oda's family were given an arrest warrant signed by the Ministry of Interior which said their son deserved to be arrested and killed for immorality as a homosexual. His body was found ten days later.

This kind of action, rather than being something which is done solely by militiamen, is clearly being carried out with the approval of the government as they are actually signing arrest warrants condoning this behaviour.

It is being reported that the UK government are unlikely to view kindly any requests for asylum from Iraq's gay community because it is unwilling to admit that Iraq is in such a state of chaos.

So we will ignore the killing of Iraqi civilians based solely upon their sexuality because Tony demands that we all join in looking at Iraq through his rose-tinted spectacles.

Lest we forget Tony's words in Los Angeles a few days ago:

"We could have chosen security as the battleground. But we didn't. We chose values."

Who's values, Tony? And are these really the kind of values that our young soldiers are risking their lives to protect?

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Tags: Iraq, Shia, militiamen, kill, gays, homosexuals,