RELIGIOUS DEATH SQUADS KILLING GAYS IN IRAQ
by PageOneQ
U.S. Occupying Forces Indifferent
Religious death squads are killing gays in Iraq, Doug Ireland will report in tomorrow's weekly edition of New York's Gay City News, PageOneQ has learned
"The Badr Corps is committed to the 'sexual cleansing' of Iraq," a 33 year old gay Iraqi exile in London told Ireland. Since the SCIRI's spiritual leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistni -- the highest Shia religious authority -- issued a fatwa ordering gays assassinated in "the worst, most severe way of killing," the Badr Corps in Iraq has begun to use the Internet to hunt down and kill Iraqi gays.
The murdered Iraqi gays "are usually discovered with their hands bound behind their back, blindfolds over their eyes, and bullet wounds to the back of the head," Iraqi exile Ali Hili, coordinator for the London-based Abu Nawas Group, an organization of gay Iraqis in exile -- tells Ireland. In one case, the article explains, a transsexual was beaten and burned to death in an area of Baghdad.
Hili explains that, "intimidation, beatings, kidnappings and murders of gays have become an almost daily occurrence.�
Ireland's interviews include one with Tahseen, an underground activist in Baghdad, who is hiding 5 gays in his home and reports on the disappearance and killings of a number of gay men.
The full article can be read tomorrow on both the Gay City News website and on Doug Ireland's blog, DIRELAND.
Information relating to this story has appeared on Advance Indiana.
Developing...
http://pageoneq.com/news/2006/IRAQ_032206b.html