Petrelis Files

UN: 'Favourable Consideration' Needed
For Gay Iraqi Asylum Claims

[As the brutality against LGBT persons in Iraq continues, I wish to make a short announcement before getting into the meat of this post. The Gays Without Borders chapter in San Francisco on May 17 will hold a rally and fundraiser for the Iraqi LGBT organization from noon till 4:00 PM at Harvey Milk Plaza. We are lining up support from non-profits, politicians and social justice activists, for an afternoon of solidarity, and money-raising, for our brothers and sisters in Iraq. Please join us next weekend.]

This is just a small ray of hope for LGBT Iraqis with the resources and wherewithal to leave their chaotic and deadly country, and should receive widespread attention from gay blogs, advocacy organizations worldwide, and the mainstream press.

The spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ron Redmond, on May 5 in Geneva made on the record comments regarding persons seeking asylum outside of Iraq, and revisions in the agency's guidelines.

Redmond said homosexuals were a category needing 'favourable consideration' by nations offering to take in Iraqi refugees:

However, UNHCR advises that people belonging to specific groups from these governorates which have been identified as at risk should receive favourable consideration. These groups include, among others, members of religious and ethnic minorities; public officials; Iraqis perceived as opposing armed groups or political factions; Iraqis affiliated with the multinational forces or foreign companies; certain professionals; media workers; UN and NGO workers; human rights activists; and homosexuals.

At the end of of the briefing note is a link to the actual guidelines. I went over the document and culled the citation referencing persons with HIV/AIDS, and the section about LGBT citizens and their plight.

Notice that the UN uses the term LGBT, after spelling out what each letter stands for. I don't know how often, if ever, the UN refers to our diverse community with the LGBT definition, but it's sure good to see it used in the revised guidelines.

If the United Nations can include a substantive account of the mistreatment and deaths of LGBT Iraqis, and is also requesting other countries offer special treatment for those LGBT Iraqis seeking asylum, then I believe American gays have a special duty to take note of these developments.

We must also insist that our professional advocacy organizations put real resources into helping LGBT Iraqis, while we all must also lobby our federal leaders to expand America's number of Iraqi refugees overall, and for LGBT and HIV positive persons in particular.

Let us use the release of the revised UN Iraqi refugees' guidelines to keep pressure on the press and governments to recognize the special needs of LGBT Iraqis.

Click here to view the full 250-page PDF. Here are excerpts related to HIV/AIDS and LGBT concerns:

UNHCR ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS

[Excerpt 1]

Persons accused of “un-Islamic” behaviour

Section 330:
[snip]
Although the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is low in Iraq, persons affected by the disease continue to be treated as social outcasts, and some have reportedly been targeted and even killed by extremists or their own families for their perceived engagement in “indecent acts” such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and drug use. (Footnote number: 1084.)

Footnotes:

1084 Heartland Alliance, a US NGO, in an e-mail correspondence with UNHCR in December 2008, confirmed that persons with HIV/AIDS have been and continue to be targeted in Iraq; see also IRIN, Iraq: HIV-positive Persons Fear Reprisals, 14 January 2009, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82357;

Ibid., Iraq: HIV-positive couple murdered, 9 August 2006, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=60142.

[Excerpt 2]

Sexual orientation

Section 333: While homosexuality is not prohibited by Iraqi law, it is a strict taboo and considered to be against Islam. Since 2003, Iraq’s largely marginalized and vulnerable lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community has frequently been targeted for attacks in an environment of impunity. In the Central and Southern Governorates, LGBT Iraqis continue to face threats, torture and extra-judicial killings at the hands of “state and non-state actors,”1088 including their own families, which consider them as violating the family’s “honour”. (1089)

Iraqi LGBT, an Iraqi NGO based in London, accounted for more than 480 Iraqi gay men killed by Shi’ite militias since 2003, among them 17 LGBT activists. (1090)

The latest killing reportedly took place in Baghdad’s Sadr City on 2 April 2009, when two gays were allegedly killed by relatives in order to cleanse the family’s “honour”. (1091)

Also, Iraqi Police said that on 25 March 2009, they had found the dead bodies of four more gays in Sadr City, each bearing a sign reading “pervert” or “puppies” in Arabic on their chests, both derogatory words used to refer to homosexuals.

Reportedly, Shi’ite clerics in Sadr City had recently urged a crackdown on the perceived spread of homosexuality. (1092)

Also reported in the media was the 25 September 2008 killing of a leading gay activist in a barber shop in Baghdad. He was one of the organizers of safe houses for gays and lesbians in Baghdad and co-ordinator of Iraqi LGBT. (1093)

Reports speak about “a systematic campaign of sexual cleansing”. (1094)

Iraqi LGBT currently runs two safe houses in Baghdad to provide a level of physical protection to a limited number of LGBT Iraqis; however, the men and women lack any prospects as mediation with their families is generally impossible and protection by the Iraqi authorities is not available. (1095)

Section 334: The Iraqi Government does not consider the killings of LGBT Iraqis a priority and a Ministry of Justice judge interviewed by Newsweek told the reporter not to waste time on an issue that he considered being “very rare”. Generally, there is little tolerance towards homosexuality in Iraqi society and many Iraqis, including high-level officials, deny that homosexuality even exists in Iraq. (1096)

Accordingly, those who commit acts of violence against homosexuals and others often do so with impunity. (1097)

Section 335: In the Kurdistan Region, homosexuality is also considered a taboo and in contradiction with religious and social mores. Overt homosexual relations are not possible to entertain, and homosexual persons would have to hide their sexual orientation. Persons known or suspected to be homosexual would face significant social pressure and be shunned. They would also face difficulties to find employment in the private sector. Individuals may be at risk of “honour killings” at the hands of their families.

Generally, the authorities would not provide efficient protection given that homosexuality is considered unlawful by religion and customs.

Recently, Adel Hussein, a doctor and freelance journalist, was prosecuted as a result of a complaint brought by Erbil’s public prosecutor for writing a scientific article about homosexuality that was found to have offended public decency under article 403 of the Penal Code. He was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine,1098 but subsequently released on 7 December 2008 under a pardon granted by the Kurdistan President on the occasion of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice (Eid Al-Adha). (1099)

Footnotes:

1088 HRW, World Report 2009, see above footnote 657.
1089 Lennox Samuels, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Do Kill, Newsweek, 26 August 2008,
http://www.newsweek.com/id/155656?from=rss; Frederik Pleitgen, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Wayne Drash, Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder, CNN, 25 July 2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/gay.iraqis/; Cara Buckley, Gays Living in Shadows of New Iraq, NY Times, 18 December 2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/world/middleeast/18baghdad.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin.
1090 Gay City News, Violent Religious Extremists Target Homosexuals: Key Gay Leader Slain in Iraq, 7 October 2008, http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/11352.
1091 Wisam Mohammed and Khalid al-Ansary, Gays killed in Baghdad as clerics urge clampdown, Reuters, 4 April 2009, http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L4506230.htm; Sameer N. Yacoub, Iraqi police: 2 gay men killed in Baghdad slum, AP, 4 April 2009, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD97B
P3FG1.
1092 Ibid.
1093 Ibid.; PinkNews, Gay leader assassinated in Baghdad, 26 September 2008,
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9112.html.
1094 Peter Tatchell, Sexual cleansing in Iraq, The Guardian, 25 September 2008,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/25/iraq.humanrights?referrer=ukgaynews.org.uk.
1095 Information received from Heartland Alliance, December 2008.
1096 Lennox Samuels, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Do Kill, Newsweek, 26 August 2008,
http://www.newsweek.com/id/155656?from=rss. See also Pleitgen, Tawfeeq and Drash, Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder, see above footnote 1089.
1097 IWPR, Baghdad Gays Fear for Their Lives, Iraqi Crisis Report No. 199, 20 October 2006, http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=324756&apc_state=heniicrd6201b571b0dd9ebc3b068b94ab0b968.
1098 AP, Journalist Jailed in Iraq over Homosexuality Story, 4 December 2008,
http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/41097; RSF, Doctor jailed in Kurdistan for writing about homosexuality, 2 December 2008, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29508.
1099 RSF, Kurdish president pardons doctor who was jailed for writing about homosexuality, 8 December 2008, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29508.