Religious
extremism sparked by the war in Iraq has left
once-comfortable gays in the Middle Eastern country
feeling demonized and afraid, The New York Timesreported Tuesday.
Outsiders have
always been viewed with suspicion in Iraq, but gays were
ignored and accepted before American troops invaded in 2003.
After the war began, about 400 people were killed for
being gay, according to an Iraqi gay rights group, and
gays and lesbians were forced to see lovers at night
and in secret, according to the Times.
A United Nations
report released in January described the growing
persecution, torture, and killing of Iraqi gays and
lesbians. In 2005, Iraq's highest-ranking
Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued
a decree calling for gays and lesbians to be killed in the
"worst, most severe way."
The decree was
lifted a year later, but a man named Mohammed, interviewed
by the Times, and his friends said they still
don't feel safe.
"We seem
suspicious because we look like a cell of
terrorists," Mohammed told the Times.
"But we can't tell people what we really
are. A cell, yes, but of gays."
The growing
influence of Iran, where homosexuality is sometimes
punishable by death, has also alarmed Iraqi gays and
lesbians.
"I want to
get out, but not just out of Iraq, out of the Middle
East," Rafi, a 25-year-old law student, told
the Times, adding, "to a country that has
respect for human rights. And for us. It will never be
possible here." (The Advocate)
