Reports of Iraqi Gays Being Targeted Are Troubling

Militias warn Iraqi families they will be murdered if they don't hand over or kill their gay relatives.

An Iraqi family pays ransom for the return of a gay man, only to learn later that his mutilated body has been found.

An Iraqi father is released without being tried for hanging his gay son to defend the family's "honor."

Secretive religious "courts" try, sentence and execute gays.

In Baghdad, a store owner and four barbers are kidnapped or vanish because of their sexual orientation.

Each of these charges of gay Iraqis having their basic human rights horribly — often fatally — violated is in a U.S. State Department report issued last month or in assessments by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.

"Attacks on homosexuals and intolerance of homosexual practices have long existed, yet they have escalated in the past year," the U.N. report noted in January. "The current environment of impunity and lawlessness invites a heightened level of insecurity for homosexuals in Iraq. Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them."

These accounts of anti-gay brutality echo news reports and charges made both by Iraqi gays living in exile and international gay and lesbian human rights groups.

Yet the Iraqi government's initial response to the U.N.'s report in January was to criticize it, rather than anti-gay violence, according to The Associated Press:

"There was information in the report that we cannot accept here in Iraq. The report, for example, spoke about the phenomenon of homosexuality and giving them their rights," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

"Such statements are not suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected. They should respect the values and traditions here in Iraq."

But at the White House morning press briefing on April 13, I asked the visiting al-Dabbagh, "Does the Iraqi government condemn the killings of Iraqis targeted specifically because they're homosexual?" He replied: "Iraqi government condemn each and every killing — whoever are being killed. Definitely we condemn it. Due to any reasons."

That's at least an encouraging response.

Clearly, the Iraqi government is too weak to end the nonstop slaughter of all sorts of civilians. But denouncing anti-gay killings is an important step toward recognizing the basic human rights of Iraqis who are gay or transgender.

Last May, in response to alarms sounded by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the State Department's acting director of the Office of Iraq Affairs told the group that his department was "very troubled" by reports of Iraqi gays being targeted. "We continue to work with Iraqi government, religious and civil society leaders to underscore the importance of human rights and basic freedoms, and we believe that the Iraqi constitution lays a strong foundation for the protection of these rights."

U.S. officials need to do more: publicly denounce any targeting of sexual minorities in the fledgling democracy.

In Iraq, all of the violence against innocent civilians is horrifying. But if a stable, relatively peaceful Iraq is ever to emerge and join the ranks of civilized nations, it will have to be a place where government tries to safeguard the rights of all, including its most vulnerable citizens.

Deb Price of The Detroit News writes the first nationally syndicated column. To find out more about Deb Price and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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