Today in Iraq, a modern version of the underground railroad is saving the lives of gay people who are fleeing death squads. It is providing safe houses in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, and is smuggling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to neighbouring countries, where it helps them apply for United Nations humanitarian protection.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, homophobia and the terrorisation of LGBT people has got much worse. The western invasion of Iraq in 2003 ended the Baathist dictatorship. But it also destroyed a secular state, created chaos and lawlessness and allowed the flourishing of religious fundamentalism. This campaign of terror is sanctioned by Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In 2005, he issued a fatwa urging the killing of LGBT people in the "worst, most severe way" possible.
This is the same Sistani who was praised by President Bush as a "leading moderate". The British government concurred. We hosted him in Britain for medical treatment. He was anti-Saddam, so the west backed him, even after he issued his murderous religious edicts. Although the general security situation has improved in Iraq, for LGBT people it has deteriorated sharply. Systematic assassinations of queers are being orchestrated by police and security agents in the interior ministry.
Read More At the Guardian
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