"They Want Us Exterminated": savage purging of gays in Baghdad
This story needs more international publicity.
"The Hunted"
New York Magazine, October 3, 2009\by Matt McAllester
From Baghdad--frightening reports of gay pogroms, where homosexual men are targeted, tortured, slayed. From New York--a scurry to find those same men before they are killed, and shepherd them to safety.
On a bright afternoon in late March, an 18-year-old named Fadi stood in a friend's clothing store in Baghdad checking out the new merchandise. A worker in a neighboring store walked into the boutique with a newspaper in his hand and shared a story he had just read. It was about "sexual deviants," he said. Gay men's rectums had been glued shut, and they had been force-fed laxatives and water until their insides exploded. They had been found dead on the street....
At minimum what publicity might help is to make people who think the following extreme way pariahs within the Mideast and pariahs within majority Islam--from the story:
"Killing gays is halal," one of the men said, meaning it was permissible under Islamic law. "We'll get points in heaven for it."
And hopefully, shame on the international front about the general attitude of Iraqi society towards gays, which is the main thing that is allowing such extremists to act out their beliefs, might have some gradual effects in changing minds there the way it has elsewhere.
If you read that story, you will find that Human Rights Watch is involved, and contrary to their usual procedure, the situation is so bad that they are intervening to try to save individuals. For more:
Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq
August 17, 2009, Human Rights Watch
This 67-page report documents a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the "third sex" and the "feminization" of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing.
An aside: The topic reminded me of the Iraqi war blogger Salam Pax, and I checked up on him. He returned to Baghdad in January 2009. He wrote several articles from there for The Guardian; the last was April 21:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/salampax
His current blog is here but has not been updated since April 1:
http://salampax.wordpress.com/
His Twitter Feed, however, as of today, had a posting on September 23, and he posted a link to the Human Rights Watch Report on August 17, the day it was published:
This is no religious purge, this is merely sadism with a convenient demographic. If it were a purge, they would simply kill them. Instead, they devise demented ways to prolong the suffering and bring about an effect. The purpose is not death, but the intense emotion that killing brings. Of course, this is no reason to ignore the threat these people pose to homosexuals, but a quicker end to this atrocity is found identifying the perpetrators as bloodthristy rather then arguing that people should accept gays. Then, as the bloodthirst abates, we can soften the hatred toward gays. First and foremost, we should stop the slaughter.
October 6, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
they would simply kill them....devise demented ways to prolong the suffering and bring about an effect
They ARE killing them. And yes, there is a demented sadist intent as well. That is being practiced for effect of instilling fear in order to purge homosexuality from society. This is no different from the gruesome punishments for crime that the Taliban used to practice when in power in Afghanistan; the idea is to get the populace to fear certain activities. Medieval thinking along the lines of not getting a big enough bang for your fear factor buck from a hanging, you've got to flay them and boil them in oil.
a quicker end to this atrocity is found identifying the perpetrators
I pretty much got from my reading that this is not happening. That's the problem! Because the majority doesn't care and also because that a large enough sector of society thinks it a good idea that the openly gay be purged from their society.
The point of the HRW report was to inform the international community that prosecutions aren't happening, no one there in power seems to care to protect these people, and to suggest that at minimum the government is looking the other way, and even may be supportive. Maybe enough in government think it's a good way to keep the Mahdi busy, who knows. How bluntly can I say it: if Iraqi society supports getting rid of gays, the international community should make them feel shame about the way it is being done so that they do prosecute.
I totally agree that you can't change culture over night. But executing death sentences for practicing homosexuality via vigilante groups that are not being prosecuted allows them a pass, they can shrug and say it's not their government doing it. If their society agrees that purging gays from their society is a good thing, make them do it loud and legal, not surreptiously through vigilantes spreading fear, so the rest of the world can know what kind of culture they are. The whole culture, not just the perps, they're getting off scot free right now. If they want to execute for homosexuality they should have the laws that say that they do it and do it publicly, go ahead, see how that works out for them with the rest of the world.
October 6, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I meant was identifying the perpetrators as purely sadists, rather then part of some socially-minded vigilante movement. What I sense is this homophobic practice is merely a cover for bloodthirsty people, much the same way I suspect torture was little more then pornography for Dick Cheney. Regardless of whom their target might be, their behavior is shameful and the international community should come down against it. It's nothing if it is not savage. The perpatrators are nothing more then savages that have no place in society.
October 6, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
But they are not purely sadists! I must disagree strongly. I think you are totally misinterpreting what is being reported by thinking that.
This is a specific orchestrated campaign to purge gays. It was not active until early 2009. It is not merely a case of sadists acting out what they love to do on victims that the society has never cared about. HRW:
In virtually all of the reported cases, any torture has a clear motive, it is not torture only for sadism's sake, it is torture to get more names of gays. They tortured them to get names of their gay contacts. They are compiling lists of gays to target from those they torture.
Perhaps it's that you didn't read the whole New York magazine article? The story in the first paragraph, of rectums glued shut, is told the way it is, of men reacting to this reported in a newspaper, for a reason. It may be apocryphal; it's not one of the documented cases. The point: things have gotten to the stage that its believed that that happened whether it did or not. The atmosphere of fear is the point, it's why the story opens with that. Gays are so afraid and know of so many bad things happening to gay friends that they believe that immediately. The newspaper story may even have been planted to scare them.
What is documented in these stories is a pogrom as similar to what happened to Jews in the past as you can get. In executing a pogrom you do get sadists happy to join in, but that's not really central to the idea. The idea is to plant fear and get all the targets to assimilate or leave the society.
October 6, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. The title of the HRW report is very clear, it's: "They Want Us Exterminated." It's not: "There's A Group of Homophobic Sadists Loose in Iraq."
October 6, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, of course. It is never likely that by excluding any other proposition one can be right. This is a targeted pogrom, even a Holocaust given it's pervasive, directed and lethal goals. I will refine my point. I suspect in our bigoted societies we would obtain greater support objecting to killers, then objecting to gays being killed.
October 6, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"....much the same way I suspect torture was little more then pornography for Dick Cheney...."
I have no doubt whatsoever that you're right about that, Gregor. As Justice Potter once said: "I don't know that I can define what pornography is, but I know when I see it."
October 6, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's something that has always befuddled me about the torture argument, whether it works or not. And about Dick Cheney, Prince of Lies. First, if torture always worked, why did they never get that one guy to "confess" Saddam had ties to Al-quaeda? If you could make someone say anything, why could they not get him to say that?
Second, again, Prince of Lies, why did he not lie and say that tortured guy admitted Saddam had ties to Al-quaeda? Cheney lied about everything else, so why does he choke up and demand the tortured guy "admit" Saddam was part of 9/11 rather then just tell everyone the tortured guy "admitted" when he did not. Why didn;t Cheney just lie like he has on every other issue?
ArtAppraiser, this is off topic and your post is important. We do need to expose this despicable trend in Baghdad for the atrocity it is, sadists run wild!
October 6, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there any idea what happened in early 2009 that caused it to be so widespread? It is so horrid to think about, yet over the past years it was clear that Sunnis were being executed regularly by forces we had armed and trained. Weren't the huge concrete wall around neighborhoods constructed partly in response to that? More evidence that nation-building is folly, especially in lands that have had clan and ethnic divisions and rivalries for so long.
Would that the gods so many believe so ardently in would emerge and set people straight about how to treat each other!
October 6, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was a purge of Sunnis in Baghdad amounting to ethnic cleansing that was the most influential factor in the success of the "surge." Ethnic cleansing destroys the norms of society.
And what infuriates me is that we are responsible, as destor says. We paid for this (with our money, not our bodies).
October 6, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there any idea what happened in early 2009 that caused it to be so widespread?
Just a suggestion. First, the widesspread part appears intentional, planned by the main perps. But beyond that, when I looked at Salam Pax's posts from earlier this year, one thing he is talking about is an excitement about the return of many exiles of the secular and professional type, some just checking the Iraq situation out on a visit, but coming nonetheless. Also about signs of life getting back to normal. A sense that finally the new Iraq is in the process of being formed, after so many false starts. (Obama's inauguration may play a part, giving off the hope that U.S. troops would really be leaving.)
So the Mahdi or whoever they are sense and see this, too. And they want the new Iraq to be their Iraq, which includes no homosexuality.
October 7, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just sent the NY Mag story link to john aravosis at americablog; i'm sure he will share it with pam's house blend, et.al.
October 6, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great, Wendy. I really believe more "buzz" helps with this type of problem, in a small way, but something is better than nothing. That's why I did the post, too.
October 7, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. I went to look up what Salam Pax was up to because I had hoped to find him writing about it. But of course, he may not be in a situation to do so right now.
October 7, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we get frickin points in heaven for that.
JESUS H. CHRIST (may the Lord bless us all)
This is barbaric. But what the hell can WE do about it?
October 6, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Flat out disgusting. And yes, when people come here and say "don't worry about the democracy, just make allies on the ground" they really mean bringing some new fresh hell to the people who live in such places.
we're just dumb enough to have invaded so all this can be done on our dime. Sickening.
October 6, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
On our dime and in our name, of course.
October 7, 2009 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Love thy brother as thyself.
Why does a nation claiming to be good fuel such hatred?
October 6, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Horrific and barbarous no doubt. But is this not another manifestation of identifying a virtually helpless minority upon which to focus the rage and hatred of a nation in deep distress? By demonizing and essentially running a pogrom on gays are they not then accomplishing a huge diversion of a great deal of the negative power floating freely throughout Iraq? I am not meaning in any way to minimize what's happening. It is beyond terrible. I'm simply trying to put it in a larger historical context of scapegoating and repression seen in many societies and it seems to me to fit the profile albeit in new, grotesque ways.
October 7, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is from the MidEast paper, The National, in an interview with an Iraqi homosexual killer last May:
October 7, 2009 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very interesting, ye olde culture wars raising its ugly head. It's so ironic, in the process such fundies fuel the "war of civilizations" theorists that beget them things like invasions from superpowers in the first place.
October 7, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another thing that fascinates me about that attitude is it requires nearly schizophrenic denial of reality, in the evidence that non-homosexual male on male sexual activity occurs a lot in Muslim societies that have strict separation of the sexes. Or maybe it's not really denial, maybe they realize that, that's why they think of homosexuality as a choice?
October 7, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or maybe it's not really denial, maybe they realize that, that's why they think of homosexuality as a choice?
Except that they're calling it an illness. As if homosexuality were like chicken pox or the plague that had never gone beyond Iraq's borders until American soldiers brought it in with them during the invasion, whereupon it contagiously spread to Iraq's young men.
October 7, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a note that it has become clearer that the government there cannot protect anyone at this point in time, much less an unpopular minority:
Bombings in Iraq, Deadliest Since 2007, Raise Security Issue, October 26, 2009
October 28, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink