Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Gay Men and Women to be Executed in Iraq

So, for the last six years, we have poured out in Iraq our national treasure, including the tax dollars of gay men and women, their families, and their friends for what?  It would seem that we have done so to assist the Iraqi government execute Iraqi gay men and women.  Reports say that many gay persons are among the 128 persons awaiting execution in Iraq.  These gay persons are to be executed for the “crime” of homosexuality and that Iraq intends to start these executions in “batches of 20” starting in this next week.

Image Courtesy Gays Without Borders

Violence against all the gay community has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued a fatwa (religious decree) which declared that gays and lesbians should be “killed in the worst, most severe way.”

Activists are calling on the government of the United Kingdom, international human rights groups, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to intervene.  The report says that Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi government to make public all information about each of the detained individuals.

Our State Department’s human rights functions are housed in the Office of the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs.  At the moment, the position is unfilled, but this is a list of telephone numbers of employees at that department.  Maybe we should let them know about what’s going on under America’s watch in Iraq:

Under Secretary

Under Secretary Vacant 7250 202-647-6240

Personal Assistant (vacant) 7250 202-647-6704

Executive Assistant Eva Weigold Schultz 7250 202-647-7609

Senior Adviser vacant 7253 202-647-4096

Senior Advisor Cathy Blank 7253 202-647-2990

Senior Advisor Lisa Sherman 7250 202-647-7196

Special Assistant Kate Friedrich 7253 202-647-1190

Senior Advisor Sam Patten 7253 202-647-9108

Special Assistant Daniel Rochberg 7250 202-647-1038

Special Assistant Carl Schonander 7253 202-647-8703

Special Assistant Kelley Currie B-864 202-647-9804

Special Assistant Jeannette Windon B-864 202-647-9810

Staff Assistant Laurie Mitchell 7250 202-647-8877

Staff Assistant Agnes Liptak 7250 202-647-6205

Intern Justin Sosne 7253 202-647-1189

Update:  Here’s the link to the story from UK Gay News.  Here’s the link to the the Iraqi LGBT Blog.  The story is on both web sites.

Update:  Please don’t forget what happened in Iran four years ago.  The blood of those boys still cries to me from their graves.


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/ 4 Comments

4 comments

  1. psychodrew

    Remember the global outrage over the woman who was convicted of adultery and sentenced to being stoned to death?  Let’s see if the world cares as much about the LGBT community.  I’m not getting my hopes up.

  3. sricki

    Thanks for posting this. Really is shameful that the MSM isn’t all over it. I’m with PD — it will be interesting to see whether there’s any significant outrage. I’m not particularly hopeful either.

  4. Chris Blask

    WTF do you do with people – political and church leaders – who advocate and perpetrate murder?  What do you do with a culture that could tolerate and encourage killing someone because of the way they make love?

    And I will go the final step and address the elephant in this room: What do you do with a *religion* that still today supports both the “killing, in the most severe way” of psychodrew, Holli, ATD and hundreds of millions of others as well as the propertization of more than three billion?  If this was the religion I grew up with – if this was a significant portion of Christianity that still advocated such evil, as it once very much did – I know exactly what I would say:

    Ali Sistani, you are a horrible, evil, putrid piece of shit.  There is nothing I can say to begin to describe my loathing for you and the beliefs that you use to support your disgusting views.  If there really was a Satan he would embrace you as a son, if there really was a God he would banish you to the pits of hell.  That goes for everyone else who agrees with you.

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