Witch Hunts Continue Against Iraqi Gays

The USA has spent billions and billions of dollars and squandered thousands of American lives on the Chimperator's fools errand in Iraq. This "investment" was supposed to remove Saddam Hussein and create a democracy in Iraq where freedom would extend to all. Except apparently if one is gay. Gays continue to be hunted down and killed by both Islamic extremists and by government forces - and American tax payers are funding this travesty. True, the Christianists likely support the extermination of gays, but I suspect most Americans do not want to be bankrolling murder and torture of civilians. The photo at right is that of a gay victim of Iraqi police torture - take a good look: that's American tax money at work in Iraq. And of course, "fierce advocate" Obama remains silent. UK Gay News has the details. Here are some highlights:
*
LONDON, June 22, 2010 – There is growing concern that the Iraqi government is stepping up a witch-hunt against gays and lesbians in the country after a police raid on a Karbala safe house, the London-based Iraqi LGBT said at the weekend.
*
Last week, twelve police officers are reported to have burst into the safe house, and then violently beat up, and blindfolded the six occupants sheltering there before bundling them off in three vans. According to a source who witnessed the raid, the police also confiscated computer equipment before burning down the house, the London group said in a statement.
*
According to reports reaching London, one of the arrested people has turned up in hospital. However, nothing is known about the whereabouts of the other five individuals, which include two gay men, one lesbian and two transgender people. It is feared they may have been taken to the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, where, it is reported, many gay people have been tortured and executed in the last two years.
*
Government forces have previously sized people particularly at roadblocks and handed them to militias who have then tortured them and their bodies have later been found.
None of the previous occupying powers have taken any action or delivered any criticism for these atrocities.
*
“Since the fall of Saddam, militias loyal to Shi’a clerics Grand Ayatollah al Sistani and Muqtada al Sadr, both of whom have called for homosexuals to be put to death, have been only too keen to carry out their leaders’ wishes,” the group says.
*
“Over 720 LGBT people have disappeared or been murdered, many of whom have been tortured to death. “There is strong evidence that the government is colluding with these militia groups, by rounding up known homosexual and transgender people.”