Group threatens to kill gays in Iraq

[DesDownunder]

A GROUP has posted signs around the Iraqi capital's main Shi'ite working-class district of Sadr City naming alleged homosexuals on a list and threatening to kill them.

"We will punish you, perverts," the posters say.

They are signed by the "Brigades of the Righteous," a previously unknown outfit with the same name as an armed group responsible for kidnapping five Britons in 2007.

Residents said that those named on the list have gone into hiding.

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood, someone has written "we will get you, puppies" in red graffiti, using the Iraqi slang for homosexuals.

Police earlier this month recovered the bullet-riddled bodies of three men said to have been homosexuals in Sadr City, a bastion of followers of the anti-US Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Two of the bodies had notes attached to them with the word "pervert," a security official said.

Residents said that the bodies of two youths aged 16 and 18 were also found in an empty lot on the edges of Sadr City, and that two homosexuals had earlier been dumped in the street with their arms and legs broken.

Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam, frowned upon in Arab society and illegal in many Middle

Eastern countries.

Iraq has no law against homosexuality but prominent religious authorities have harshly condemned it.

Article from News.com.au

This really gets to me. Such inhumanity is irreconcilable with respect for another human being.

[Cole Parker]

This really gets to me. Such inhumanity is irreconcilable with respect for another human being.

Yes, killing, maiming, torturing and blowing up innocents, including children, because of your religious fervor means you don't have any respect for humans at all. You think your own beliefs and feelings are superior to those of anyone else.

I would like to think this is a perversion of the Islamic faith and way of life. It's hard to imagine that such a religion would attract as many people as it does if it preaches this sort of obscene hatred of anyone who isn't exactly the same as they are. I think the problem is, the majority of Islamic believers don't accept this sort of indiscriminate violence, but feel helpless to say or do anything about it.

If it's going to stop, I think the motivation to do so must come from inside the faith. The moderates must speak out. What they need is a charasmatic leader to cross all sects and gather all believers together in a peaceful movement.

Of course if they do, there's a good chance someone with break their arms and legs, then riddle them with bullets and dump them in a empty lot.

C

[Trab]

The problem is in the religion to a huge degree. Wherever we see so-called 'devout' religious people, more often than not, men, we see persecution of anyone not part of that same male cadre. Women, homosexuals, children, the handicapped are all victims of assault, abuse and slavery. Those strong males who heap on the abuses strongly endorse their religion if it supports their positions of power. To them, there is no such issue as human rights, because to them, if you are not part of the strong male cadre, you are NOT human, and can be treated with total disrespect. They also endorse actions against animals that would condemn them almost anywhere else, and call on God to support their actions.

Let me be quite clear about my feelings on this: those men who behave that way are mentally ill. They are so whacked out that I don't think anything can be done to convert them to respecting anyone, or anything, particularly not 'human' rights. While I have respect for life, animal, plant and even religious zealots, I think the world would be a much better place without the zealots. What can we do about it? I don't know.

Turning the other cheek, and loving people, while very noble, will eventually kill us all. The Jews and gypsies could have turned the other cheek in Nazi Germany and changed nothing. At some point we MUST fight back, but to do so blindly and violently is not the best way. Even though people have argued with my idea that we must form together into larger supportive social structures of gays, I think it is the only way. It is from the organized groups in large centers, where gays have united, that we are getting improvements. If we could get our shit together to just 'take over' by populating specific areas so we are a huge percentage, and then invite or even pay for refugees to join us, we'd get way further ahead.

If indeed 10% of the population is gay, we could have a country of 400 million people, and wield a huge amount of power. It wouldn't require violence, just concentrated effort, dedication and love. (Some money couldn't hurt.)

[DesDownunder]

Trab I agree with your assessment of the zealots. I also understand that being a peaceful and loving person is not always enough to deter them or their ilk.

But a certain number of us must remain aloof from adopting the measures of those who hate or we will become hateful too.

In any war involving human rights, people of peace must be protected so that the soldiers can be reintegrated into the society of humanity for which they have fought. So often this has been forgotten in the past or only paid lip service.

The only thing wrong with your idea about creating large centres of gay dominant people from the supposed 10% of the population that are homosexual, is that I believe a much higher percentage is gay than 10%.

Indeed I think the physical expression of love between people of the same sex has been made taboo because of cultural beliefs. If anything it seems to me that maybe 10% or less of the human population lacks the ability to have a relationship with the same sex, but that is because they are in some way deprived genetically or mentally from being so. The rest are suppressing their natural inclination due to cultural beliefs and of course the zealots.

This idea of same sex being a natural part of the human experience is supported by the freedom of homosexuality in Ancient Greece which had the same or slightly higher birthrate in relation to its neighbours. A culture that supports sexual freedom is not evil, but a culture that inhibits expressions of love between its consenting members is against nature, is against the only sane reason for existence, Love.

In any case there is nothing unnatural about loving someone else, man or woman, but that is the truth that must be stated and I find it difficult to do that if I am on an island away from the rest of humankind. So I am saying that the work that must be done to liberate people from feeling threatened by homosexuality has to be done in way that they see it is already part of their own humanity, not separated from it.

It is happening, but I am helpless to know how to overcome the zealots in control of religions, other than by setting them the example of reason.

[Trab]

I am reluctant to point to the example of Israel, in a sea of Muslim nations, as there are definite problems with that example, but it does point out that by setting aside an area, even if surrounded by opposition and controversy, others of like mind (Jewish faith) are attracted to the predominance not normally available to them, and move there. This provides its own strength and growth for those moving there.

An island of isolation is absolutely not what I'm suggesting. An "island" of love and acceptance IS what I'm suggesting. If that means encouraging all gays in North America to move to someplace like Kansas, or Minnesota, or everyone worldwide to more to El Salvador, or wherever, then that's what may work best in the long run.

Please note that I didn't promote, or encourage, violence, but rather, spoke against it. The trouble right now is that there is quite literally no place to retreat to, no place to recover, grow, accept, be accepted, and flourish. Yes, there are individual pockets, but most are pockets of no more than a few friends, or close family. What we need are large pockets of support, towns, counties, states, and countries. As long as we are 10%, or even 40%, we are not in a position of strength, or acceptability, but remain in a position of barely being tolerated, here and there.

[Cole Parker]

I love your idea, Trab, of a gay society in and of itself, separate from its neighbors, but don't think human nature, being what it is, would allow it. Even if it were peaceful and nonthreatening, outsiders would start to worry about it, and feel something was alien about it, and eventually, think it must be tamed and ruled, or even abolished. Or, they'd want whatever things the group had.

Many of the American Indian tribes were agricultural and nonviolent, but the white man couldn't abide their presence. They were different and a minority, and no matter how peaceful they were, they were exploited. The Aussies did much the same with the aborigines. I think it's a natural tendency of men to want to control other, weaker groups.

I think the better solution is what we're doing right now. Getting laws to protect gays, getting young people to accept the fact that gay kids are much more like straight kids than different, that everyone should have equal rights. That's the current that's washing through this country right now, and while there are people trying their best to fight it, the number of people accepting it keeps growing.

C

[Trab]

I know what you are saying Cole, and there is a definite tendency towards more acceptance in the USA, and Europe, but if you look at it globally, the losses around the world more than destroy any gains 'locally'. Even here there are terrible tragedies, and we need something more than just thinking things are improving at a good pace. They are NOT improving at nearly the rate needed to save so many from angst, depression, abuse, and death.

[JamesSavik]

You know for the religion of peace and tolerance, Islam has some real SOBs.

[Cole Parker]

I know what you are saying Cole, and there is a definite tendency towards more acceptance in the USA, and Europe, but if you look at it globally, the losses around the world more than destroy any gains 'locally'. Even here there are terrible tragedies, and we need something more than just thinking things are improving at a good pace. They are NOT improving at nearly the rate needed to save so many from angst, depression, abuse, and death.

Just a decade or so ago, people would not believe the gains that have been made since then. Sure we can and do wish it would go faster. Sure, we wish it was happening in all countries. But the fact is, people change their attitudes slowly and begrudgingly. that it's happening at all, and as rapidly as it is in educated cultures, is remarkable.

What happens in Europe and the US tends to spread to the rest of the world.

I don't think we are simply thinking things are improving at a good pace. They are, but it isn't happening through sitting around thinking about it. Activists, for the most part peaceful activists, have collaborated to make things move forward, and the pressure to continue is strong. Someone like the governor of NY isn't going to keep trying to press for gay marriage there just because he's a good guy. He's a politician, and feels the will of the people changing, and wants to be on the cutting edge.

We can't change the world. But changing what we can will help put pressure on the rest of the world to do likewise.

C

[colinian]

An island of isolation is absolutely not what I'm suggesting. An "island" of love and acceptance IS what I'm suggesting. If that means encouraging all gays in North America to move to someplace like Kansas, or Minnesota, or everyone worldwide to more to El Salvador, or wherever, then that's what may work best in the long run.

You're thinking all gays would be "encouraged" to go peacefully to a nice secluded spot? I don't think so. Most would have to be forced to go to Kansas or El Salvador or wherever. And what would you do with kids when they realize that they are (or might be) gay? Send them away to the camps too? Sounds like what the U.S. did to the Japanese during the Second World War. Don't count me in.

But it would be a great plot device for a story, Trab. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

Colin

[DesDownunder]

The BBC reports further on the Iraqi gays' 'Lives of hell'