REPORT: ISIS Executes More Men in Iraq, Claiming They Are Gay

More horrifying atrocities against men believed to be gay have come to light in occupied Iraq, where Islamic militants from ISIS have executed four men by tying them up and tossing them from the rooftops of high-rise buildings.

Extremists in Mosul executed two Iraqi men in this fashion simply for being gay, local sources reported to the ARA News website. Another report claimed the same fate befell two men in Nineveh, for the same "crime."

A civil rights activist in the region told ARA News the judgment of who is gay is based on "superficial information without any investigation."

The pretext in the Mosul execution, reports ARA, is that the men were determined to be a gay couple. Daesh, or ISIS, interprets the Koran as forbidding homosexuality, a widely held belief in the Muslim world. The Human Rights Campaign notes, however, that "because Islam has no central governing body, it is not possible to state clear policies regarding issues of interest to LGBT people. Depending on nationality, generation, family upbringing, and cultural influences, Islamic individuals and institutions fall along a wide spectrum, from welcoming and inclusive to a level of rejection that can be marked by a range of actions ranging from social sequestration to physical violence."

"On Sunday afternoon," a witness told ARA News on the condition of anonymity, "Daesh called on the people of Mosul to gather in the square of Bab al-Toub in order to witness the execution."

"The victims were taken to the top of a building and were brutally thrown off the roof," according to the witness. Similar executions have been recorded and shared via social media, as The Advocate has previously reported, although in most cases those organizing the cruel acts have confiscated or destroyed those recordings.

The ISIS-linked Sharia Court had issued a decision to execute every gay man by throwing him from the top of a building, leading to the deaths of dozens of men and boys in recent months across the ISIS-controlled regions of both Iraq and Syria.