Petrelis Files

Gay Iraqi Still Peddling Beheading Photos
on the College Lecture Circuit?

(Haider Hamza during his Kent State University visit. Photo credit: Glennis Siegfried, Daily Kent Stater.)

With the return of students to college campuses across the nation recently, the college lecture circuit is in full swing and one gay Iraqi refugee, Haider Hamza, is active these days giving lots of lectures. As I've previously reported, Hamza has been subjected to scrutiny from the Washington Blade and the US Army for claims made on July 24 at the the Human Rights Campaign offices, that American forces have beheaded gay Iraqis and that he possessed pictures of the atrocities. His allegations have proved bogus.

However, despite the US Army finding no credence to back up Hamza's outlandish claims and his creditability called into question, he's proving a hit on a college lecture tour, garnering media attention. One recent news clip provides details about a presentation he made last week at Illinois College:

Hamza illustrated his lecture with dozens of photographs he took, many of which showed bloody and sad scenes of how the war tore the country apart.

“It became a regular scene to see bodies along the side of the road,” he said.

The photojournalist’s images captured a woman mourning the loss of two young sons mistakenly gunned down by American soldiers; beheaded and mutilated bodies; car bombings; teenage insurgents; an overcrowded military prison; and the expressionless faces of Iraqis tired of the fighting.

Sounds much like the talk he gave at HRC in July, but there is no indication that Hamza again said his beheading photos showed either dead gays or that US force were responsible for the beheadings. I believe had he done so the reporter covering the lecture would have written of Hamza making such claims.

Hamza's presentation this fall to American colleges is not the same thing he presented to the gay community in Washington. However, I continue to be skeptical of his allegations on many issues, and wish the students hiring him to come and lecture before them would start demanding independently verified evidence to back up his allegations.

For example, these allegations have been put forward and published on the Kent State University news site:

Hamza was arrested, kidnapped and separated from others during his time in Iraq.

He was arrested 68 times while on assignment for arriving on a site of an attack before the military. Hamza said he and fellow journalists simply followed the smoke. They learned quickly that where there's smoke, there's a story.

As an Iraqi citizen himself, Hamza was viewed as a traitor of his own country and was kidnapped twice.

Arrested so many times and kidnapped twice, claims Hamza has not publicly made before, and he's had plenty of media attention and sure knows how to get his message out, but now coming out during an Ohio lecture, and I would like this Iraqi to prove his claims this time.

At this point, with his previously unproven beheading claims still fresh in my mind, and with his new arrest and kidnapping allegations coming out, there should be more scrutiny of everything Hamza wants Americans to swallow as the truth.