When the world learned about the horrific anal gluing and death-by-induced-diarrhea of homosexuals in April of 2009, my activist group Gays Without Borders created a Tomb of the Unknown Gay in San Francisco's Harvey Milk Plaza, pictured.
Around the globe, countless voices of LGBT people and our allies that month expressed grave concern for gays and transgenders in Iraq, targeted by militias linked to the government and subject to gruesome abuses and torture. Activists in New York City staged a vigil at and delivered a letter of protest to the Iraqi government's Mission to the United Nations.
In March of last year, graphic photos circulated on the web of dead young gays and emos and goths killed when cement blocks were dropped on their skulls, pictured.
A disturbing video also emerged a year ago showing a teenage emo executed by hanging from an overhead highway.
Gays Without Borders staged a speakout and vigil in San Francisco's gay Castro District, condemning the brutal murders of gay, emo and goth Iraqi youths, again by militias linked to the government.
The systemic torture and murder and other abuses suffered by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Iraq over the past decade, along with the spate of emo and goth deaths in 2009, has been well-documented and widely reported yet oddly omitted by an analysis published this week by Amnesty International.
From their site:
Amnesty’s 82-page report - Iraq: A Decade of Abuses (PDF) - catalogues years of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees committed by Iraqi security forces and by foreign troops in the wake of the 2003 invasion. It highlights the Iraqi authorities’ failure to observe their obligations to uphold human rights and respect the rule of law in the face of deadly attacks by armed groups.
On page 62, passing reference is made to anything gay-specific, bolding added:
Those excluded from the amnesty are defined in Article 2 of the law – these are prisoners who have been sentenced to death under the Iraqi Penal Code; those serving prison sentences for acts of terrorism resulting in death or permanent disability; those sentenced for crimes against humanity as set out in Article 1 of Law No.10, which established the SICT; and those sentenced for premeditated murder, kidnapping, rape, homosexual acts, adultery, incest, forging official documents, counterfeiting, smuggling artefacts, and offences under the Iraqi Military Criminal Code.
That's it for this Amnesty report saying a damn thing about gays in Iraq. At least we got one citation. The emos and goths didn't receive any mention.
The freakish hell unleashed by United States declaring war on Iraq unleashed countless acts of abuses and deaths, many of which are contained in the report, but the gay, emo and goth omissions are a blot of shame on Amnesty's resume.
I too am shocked at these omissions in the Amnesty report. The UK website has even removed this report from their website and when searching the website for the words 'Iraq' and 'gay' nothing is found.
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