A coordinator of
an Iraqi LGBT advocacy group was assassinated Thursday.
The 27-year-old university student, known only
as Bashar, was assassinated in a barbershop in
Baghdad, according to Peter Tatchell of the U.K gay
advocacy group OutRage!
A coordinator of
an Iraqi LGBT advocacy group was assassinated Thursday.
The 27-year-old university student, known only
as Bashar, was assassinated in a barbershop in
Baghdad. Militia members burst into the barbershop and
"sprayed his body with bullets at point blank range,"
Peter Tatchell of the U.K gay advocacy OutRage! told the
Guardian newspaper.
The student
organized safe houses for gays and lesbians in Baghdad,
where many seek refuge from militias that seek out and
kill LGBT people. Iraqi LGBT, which Bashar led, houses
about 40 gay men between the ages of 14 and 28,
according to Newsweek.
A United Nations
report on human rights, released in 2006, showed
that while gays and lesbians are supposed to be protected by
law in Iraq, LGBT residents must still live in hiding
or face extreme brutality.
Scott Portman,
with the human rights group Heartland Alliance, told CNN
in 2006 that gays and lesbians in Iraq are often threatened
because "homosexuality is sometimes interpreted by
people in Iraq as being a Western import. So they can
sometimes be targeted by insurgent groups or militias
in part because of animosity toward the West and in part
because homosexuality is not well-accepted in Iraqi
society." (Michelle Garcia, The Advocate)
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