How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays

[panzerfaust]

Source: Guardian (UK)

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

"It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed...

...The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed..."

...Homosexuality was not criminalised under Saddam Hussein – indeed Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s was known for its relatively liberated gay scene. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT ... group, a London-based human-rights group, a total of 680 have died in Iraq, with at least 70 of those in the past five months. The group believes the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women. According to Hali, Iraq has become "the worst place for homosexuals on Earth".



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/iraq-gays-murdered-militias

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Bring'n 'Merican values to the A-rabs, or just a return to the traditional teachings of the God of Abraham?

Allahu Akbar!

[Ian David]

1. "Spreading freedom" my ass. n/t

[myrna minx]

2. K&R n/t

:cry:

[ET Awful]

3. Hmmm, the deputy leader sounds just like Fred Phelps n/t

[tomm2thumbs]

4. it's like having state sponsored serial killers on the payroll

sad, scary

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. The sharia and islam in action N/T

[JackRiddler]

19. If so, why didn't this happen in Iraq prior to the US-UK invasion?

Your answer, while accurate in one way (blaming an extremist version of Islam, at any rate), strikes me as smug, and distancing the US from responsibility for this, among so many other horrors.

[customerserviceguy]

20. I'm going to guess that the reason it didn't happen

was because the Sunnis who were in charge were marginally more tolerant. When you lift the Sunni boot off of the Shia throat, this is what you get.

It will take decades after we leave to re-establish a pecking order for the peoples of Iraq, unless a strongman dictator takes over quickly. That was Saddam Hussein's function.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. Because it was a secular government and did not enforce or allow the sharia to be enforced

Its not just Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Palestine, and others islamic nations allow/encourage similar abuses of human rights

[QC]

6. "the reputation we took centuries to build up"

It's tempting, but I'm not going to touch that one.

[AusDem]

7. disgusting, just disgusting

never fails to baffle me that people actually can do these kind of things. what happened to some real work for a living. who funds these crazies?
spends SIX HOURS A DAY! could be doing something useful with his time, but no.....gay hunting.

[JonQ]

8. Don't think you can blame this on "american values"

they've had an issue with homosexuals for some time now, even (get this) predating the US.

[woo me with science]

9. Party pooper. nt

[JonQ]

11. Sorry,

I mean they were renowned for their tolerance of homosexuals, other religions, and freedom of speech, as well as promotion of womens rights, prior to the US led invasion of Iraq. That was like flipping a switch, in which they picked up all the evils of America; like how we routinely murder homosexuals as a state policy, unlike middle eastern countries such as Iran, and how we penalize women for being raped by giving them the lash, unlike tolerant and understanding countries such as saudi arabia.

Damn you american values! <shake fist impotently at the air>

[woo me with science]

12. Well, okay then!

:yourock:

[JackRiddler]

14. Can you read the article?

Get past the semantics - obviously this isn't due to "American values" but it was unleashed by the illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq. This wasn't happening under Saddam. It is a direct consequence of the US-UK invasion.

[JonQ]

15. I take it you didn't read the entire OP

like the part where the poster blames this on good old 'merican values. That's ok, it was a lot to read.

[QC]

16. You mean we're supposed to read things *before* responding to them?

That's not going to go over well.

[JackRiddler]

18. I did, but I can also detect irony at at least a fifth grade level.

What's the point? Hundreds of people being tortured and murdered on suspicion that they are gay.

An unimaginable atrocity. Grounded in a disgusting, life-hating, fundamentalist religionism (whether we describe it as due to religious indoctrination or cultural backwardness). Something however that had been held back and moderated by the relatively modern, secular regime that the United States invaded and overthrew, doing so (falsely) in the name of "American values."

Let's not argue the semantics - this horror and our helplessness to do anything constructive about it (the fact that "our" action prompted it, in fact) are making me sick. Such a sad, sad, disgusting situation.

[JonQ]

21. "Let's not argue the semantics"

Oh, ok. So I can't use the actual words from the actual post in responding to the post?

[Jkid]

10. What's wrong with this sentence

people who are destroying Islam

reputation we took centuries to build up

What reputation? Islam or Arab medievalism?

Obvisouly it's arab medievalism

[Stumbler]

13. It's creepy isn't it?

We in the West have Christian extremists and those in the East have Islamic extremists, and both groups hate the homos. How queer... Or should I say 'how curious?'

It is interesting to see the similarities of religious extremisms. Denial of women's rights or legitimacy. Hatred-for and persecution-of outside religions and non-believers. Decrying science while praising scripture....

Religion, while being the one thing that binds both groups to each other on countless issues, will be the one that allows both groups to kill each other before a word can be said. Taste's like a bittersweet irony to me.

[JonQ]

17. I'm glad we've largely tamed our fundies

when they act like this they go to jail.

The middle east needs to have a similiar awakening, ASAP.