The situation for gay
Iraqis has never been more dire: With reports of torture,
"anal gluing," and murder coming out of the Middle
East, is the U.S. surge to blame for this sudden explosion of
antigay violence?
COMMENTARY: "I am gay
and I am Iraqi, please help me."
A contact of mine told
me he came across this comment in an e-mail. The only
thing more extraordinary than the message was the location. He
was sitting in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad when he read it.
My contact said he was
reaching out to me because things were "heating up" for gay
men in Iraq. Over the years, he said he'd received several
e-mails from gay Iraqis that came through the U.S. embassy's
website -- they are a "single source of frustration, because
I feel completely helpless and heartbroken reading stories
about an Iraqi that is sending an e-mail probably just a few
miles from where I am sitting in the embassy, and telling me
that there is a militia coming just down the block and they
have a list."
I traveled
to Baghdad in the summer of 2007, during the height of
the U.S. surge, to get a better handle on the situation for
gays in Iraq. During my visit I met with a few gay Americans
who worked at the embassy, all of whom spoke off-the-record
when giving me quotes and providing information.
In recent months,
things have certainly been "heating up" -- articles
from
The New York Times
, the BBC, and the
Los Angeles Times
, as well as many other mainstream and gay publications, point
to the horrors of what is happening in Iraq. Each article seems
more harrowing than the last, attempting to make sense
of something that's hard to fathom for the readers who
digest these articles from the comfort and safety of an America
where "dont ask, don't tell"
and same-sex marriage make up the bulk of news
coverage.
Some outlets --
particularly in the gay press -- point to reports by
Iraqi LGBT, a London-based activist group reporting that gay
men in Iraq are on death row and that they've received a
letter from a gay Iraqi pleading for help, all of which has
been next to impossible to verify. Others point to the
reassertion of power by militias, particularly in Sadr City, a
Shia slum within Baghdad where the Mahdi Army has for years
engaged in a reign of terror against locals and the U.S.
military.
In addition to the
direct killings of gay men by the militia was the report of a
fire-bombing of a neighborhood café popular
among gay men. Still more articles look to the influence of
militias in combination with family honor killings -- gay men
who have been thrown out into the streets to fend for their
safety, or Iraqis who have killed gay family members.
The most disturbing
report comes from the Arab-language news source
Alarabiya
, describing the torture and killing of at least seven gay men
who have had their anuses closed using a special glue, with
Iraqi officers having forced them to take a
medicine inducing diarrhea and death. While the
English-language media has conflicting reports on what is
happening in Iraq, this report, created by those who speak the
language and have the best resources to interview local
political and religious officials, gives perhaps the best
indication of how terrible the situation has
become for LGBT Iraqis.
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Michael Luongo has
written numerous books on the Middle East and is the author of
the book
Gay Travels in the Muslim World.
For more information visit
www.michaelluongo.com
. This article is representative of the author's views and
not those of Advocate.com.