[Daniel]

So- it is their religious duty to kill gay men.

Alleged Executioner of Gay Men in Iraq Speaks of Killings

English language newspaper The National, based in Abu Dhabi, reports on the recent executions of gay men in Iraq.

Sadrcity They interview a man they call Abu Muslim, who claims to be involved in the actual killings:

“We see this [homosexuality] as a serious illness in the community that has been spreading rapidly among the youth after it was brought in from the outside by American soldiers. These are not the habits of Iraq or our community and we must eliminate them...We had approval from the main Iraqi tribes here to liquidate those [men] copying the ways of women. Our aim is not to destabilise the security situation. Our aim is to help stabilise society...Although the Mahdi Army is today limited and in fact stalled, we cannot sit by with our arms crossed while these homosexuals flout the rules and ethics that must be followed under the Islamic religion. These homosexuals think that Iraq is changing and becoming a non-Muslim, liberal society but our tribal and religious customs allow us to punish them in the most severe way."

They also speak with Hayder al Mousawi, an imam at the Hussein mosque in the Karada neighbourhood of Baghdad: “The truth is that the homosexual brings shame on them so how can God be angry with them for killing the homosexual? On the contrary, in killing the homosexual they are carrying out God’s will.”

Park And a doctor at Al Shaab hospital, Taher Mustafa, tells the paper that he knows of at least three men brought in recently that he thinks were killed because they were gay: “We had bodies in, they were of men between 17 and 25 years old and they’d either been shot or burnt to death. It’s good that people are beginning to get freedoms they’ve been deprived of for a long time, but the youth here have to understand that they are living in a society that is governed by traditions and religious customs, and that still has militias to enforce them. It is unacceptable that people are murdered in the streets for any reason, or for these gangs to behave as if they are the law,. As the national security system gets stronger, this will stop.”

They also speak with a 23-year-old gay Iraqi national who says he has received anonymous phone calls with threats to kill him: “It is our right to live as we see fit and it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government to protect us and that right, as citizens. Just because we are not practising Muslims does not mean that we can be treated as if we are not human beings. We all know homosexuals are killed here. They get murdered by firing squads, but only after they’ve been tortured. There’s a large waste dump in al Shaab and that’s where the bodies are left.”