During a visit to
Baghdad last week, Colorado congressman Jared Polis -- the
first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Congress as a freshman
-- called on U.S. and Iraqi officials to launch an
investigation into a spate of recent murders of gay men in
Iraq.
Media outlets and gay
and human rights organizations have reported an
official police crackdown and an increased amount of violence
directed against gays in the country,
where homosexuality is illegal.
"The United States
should not tolerate human rights violations of any kind,
especially by a government that Americans spend billions of
taxpayer dollars each year supporting," Polis said in a
press release. "Hopefully my trip and letters to U.S. and
Iraqi officials will help bring international attention and
investigation to this terrible situation and bring an end to
any such offenses."
While in Baghdad for a
congressional trip to Iraq, Polis met with the Iraqi charge
d'affaires, members of the Iraqi parliament's human
rights committee, and U.S. State Department officials and
provided them a letter outlining the violence against gays,
urging immediate investigation. According to Polis's press
release, the charge d'affaires had thus far requested more
documentation and the opportunity to speak with witnesses and
victims.
"We will now wait
and see whether the Iraqi government is serious about
protecting the human rights of all Iraqis and what role our own
State Department has to play in helping to protect this
minority in Iraq," Polis said in the release. "I am
most disturbed by allegations that the Iraqi government itself
may be involved in the persecutions. This warrants an immediate
investigation from both American and Iraqi
governments."
Before his trip to
Iraq, Polis was forwarded a letter written by an Iraqi
gay rights activist from prison; the activist was
later executed. Polis says he also spoke through a translator
to a transgender Iraqi man who said he had been arrested,
beaten, and raped by Ministry of Interior security forces.
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