Iraq reporter jailed for homosexuality story freed

[sabra]

Source: AP

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – A freelance journalist imprisoned in northern Iraq for violating a public decency law by writing a story about homosexuality has been pardoned and released, the writer and officials said Wednesday.

Adel Hussein said he was pardoned on Sunday by Massoud Barzani, the president of the self-ruled Kurdish region in the country's north.

Hussein, a medical doctor, was sentenced Nov. 24 to six months in prison and ordered to pay $106 fine over an article he wrote about the physical effects of homosexuality.

"I am a doctor and a specialist as well as a journalist. I was not supposed to be put in prison. It was too much to endure," Hussein told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Hussein was serving his sentence at Mahata prison in Irbil, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad. He was among 121 people pardoned by the president in advance of the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, according to Barzani's Web site. The holiday is one of Islam's most important ones.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_4

[xfundy]

1. "the physical effects of homosexuality"?

What might those be, specifically? A gay person is still gay when grocery shopping or winning a football game.

Or is he talking about the scary "anal sex" that is hardly limited to gays?

Maybe I'm just paranoid (don't know how I could ever have got the impression that paranoia's not always silly) but I'm waiting for another shoe to drop on this one.

:tinfoilhat: