Guardian UK: Iraq's queer underground railroad

[marmar]

Iraq's queer underground railroad
A secret network of safe houses and escape routes is saving gay Iraqis from execution by Islamist death squads

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 February 2009 21.30 GMT


In the bad old days of slavery in the United States, there was the "Underground Railroad" – a clandestine network of secret routes and safe houses – which spirited thousands of southern slaves to freedom in the north.

Today, 200 years later in Iraq, a modern version of the underground railroad is saving the lives of gay people who are fleeing Islamist 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. This secret network, coordinated by Iraqi LGBT exiles in London, is saving dozens of lives.

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 tyrannical Baathist dictatorship. But it also destroyed a secular state, created chaos and lawlessness and allowed the flourishing of religious fundamentalism. The result has been an Islamist-inspired homophobic terror campaign against LGBT Iraqis.

You can watch two short videos, which show the terror of queer life in "democratic" Iraq here and here.

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. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/25/iraq-gay-rights

[mitchtv]

1. Thanks Marmar

I'm gonna xpost this in GLBT where it may hang around a bit longer