Islamist Gangs Use Internet to Track, Torture and Kill Iraqi Gays

Britain's Guardian has a sickening story on how Islamic gangs are tracking and murdering gay Iraqis - like the murdered young men in the photo above. Meanwhile the U.S. military and the puppet government of Iran do nothing to stop the disgusting slaughter. It truly makes me sick - and again think that religion more often than not is one of the greatest evils on the earth. One also has to wonder about the mindset and sexual identity issues of someone who would track down gays in the manner described in the article. Sadly, this type of hate and murder is the ultimate fruit of religious extremism be it Islamic or Christian. Something needs to be done to stop this horror. Here are highlights from the Guardian:

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Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims. "It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.

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Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.

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The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed."

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Homosexuality was not criminalised under Saddam Hussein – indeed Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its relatively liberated gay scene. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a London-based human-rights group, a total of 680 have died in Iraq, with at least 70 of those in the past five months. The group believes the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women. According to Hali, Iraq has become "the worst place for homosexuals on Earth".

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The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. . . . "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals," she said. "I will carry this image with me until my dying day."

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The irony is that these ignorant Islamic extremist don't realize that in the Persian Empire at the height of its power - which stretched from India to the eastern most Greek Islands - homosexuality was accepted and indeed a number of the emperors had their make lovers and eunuchs. It was not until Christianity and Islam spread across the western and eastern portions of the former empire did homosexuality become condemned. Like Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism needs an ignorant, uninformed population to flourish. As for Iraq, I hope the Chimperator and his Christian Right extremists are happy with the fate of Iraqi gays.