Iraqi Gay
Activist Murdered in Baghdad

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)