Oh that beacon of light, citadel of liberal democracy for the violent arabs...

[Tsukasa Buddha]

How to properly praise the government we created in Iraq? Muses, spare time from Apollo's lyre and sing me the words to celebrate the shining beacon of hope that is Iraq! Why, Democracy brings liberty to the oppressed people who were clouded in darkness before we brought unto them our wisdom and formed them in our image from the muck of violence. Iraq is a catalyst to hasten the coming of freedom to the horrid region. Long live liberal democracy, liberation, and the wonderful government!

More than 100 prisoners in Iraq are facing execution. Many of them, says an underground gay rights organization in the country, are believed to have been convicted of the 'crime' of being gay, the UK-based Iraqi-LGBT group revealed this afternoon.
According to Ali Hili of Iraqi-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week. There is, said Hili, at least one member of Iraqi-LGBT who are among those to be put to death.


Linky. (http://pageoneq.com/stories/iraq03302008.html)

Ah ****.

[quixotecoyote]

Well you don't expect Iraq to reach Iranian standards overnight do you? I think a week is quite reasonable.

[DC]

:eye-poppi

[Eddie Dane]

This is great news.

Apparently Western aid is effective, the infrastructure is getting back up and construction cranes are in working order again.

I suspect the courts have an enormous backlog of homosexuals to execute, so it will be a while before they turn their attention to the dreaded converts from Islam.

Of course, the new enlightened government of Afghanistan is already working on sentencing and executing infidels, so it's all a matter of priorities, I suppose.

[Puppycow]

I'll bet their military even has a "don't ask don't tell" policy and gay couples don't enjoy the same tax benefits as heteros, much less the right to "marry." Barbarism! Savagery!

[gdnp]

:(

I expected continued persecution, but I still find this shocking.

[WildCat]

How to properly praise the government we created in Iraq?
The Iraqis elected that government, the US didn't install it. What did you expect? The "religion of peace" is rabidly anti-gay, really makes you wonder about what the people who join groups like this are thinking: http://www.quitpalestine.org/

Islam is not a friend of gays.

eta: but I'm not aware of there actually being a death penalty for homosexuals in Iraq, can anyone confirm this?

[Beerina]

:eye-poppi

"Batches of 20", how morbid.




I had a fear it would go to Hell when the US got all mealy-mouthed in creating the new government that allowed institutionalized religion a foothold.

Jamming a massive, free constitution down Japan's throat worked out so-so, I'm told.

[DC]

"Batches of 20", how morbid.




I had a fear it would go to Hell when the US got all mealy-mouthed in creating the new government that allowed institutionalized religion a foothold.

Jamming a massive, free constitution down Japan's throat worked out so-so, I'm told.

Sorry i dont understand it i think :)

[WildCat]

I'm still waiting for evidence that being gay is a capital offense in Iraq.

[WildCat]

"Batches of 20", how morbid.
Note the article does not claim that thes batches will be composed exclusively of gay people. In fact, there is still no evidence in this thread that homosexuality is a capital offense in Iraq, like it is in Iran.

[lupus_in_fabula]

Note the article does not claim that thes batches will be composed exclusively of gay people. In fact, there is still no evidence in this thread that homosexuality is a capital offense in Iraq, like it is in Iran.

From a future perspective: What do you mean gays? There aren't any gays is Iraq. Or wait, is it Iran? I always confuse those two. :p

[Puppycow]

This was in the NY Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/middleeast/08gay.html?_r=1&hp)

In the past two months, the bodies of as many as 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City, the police and friends of the dead say. Most have been shot, some multiple times. Several have been found with the word “pervert” in Arabic on notes attached to their bodies, the police said.
. . .
“Homosexuality is against the law,” said Lt. Muthana Shaad, at a police station in the Karada district, a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. “And it’s disgusting.”

For the past four months, he said, officers have been engaged in a “campaign to clean up the streets and get the beggars and homosexuals off them.”

Gay men, he said, can be arrested only if they are seen engaging in sex, but the police try to drive them away. “These people, we make sure they can’t get together in a coffee shop or walk together in the street — we make them break up,” he said.

Gay men and lesbians in Iraq have long been among the targets of both Shiite and Sunni death squads, but their murders have been overshadowed by the hundreds of overall weekly casualties during the height of sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007.

In 2005, the country’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a religious decree that said gay men and lesbians should be “punished, in fact, killed.” He added, “The people should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.” The language has since been removed from his Web site.

[portlandatheist]

FWIW, wiki article on gay rights in Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iraq

[Beerina]

From a future perspective: What do you mean gays? There aren't any gays is Iraq. Or wait, is it Iran? I always confuse those two. :p

Iran's the one that's a shining example of how democracy in the Middle East is supposed to work, according to some in the West.

[Beerina]

"Batches of 20", how morbid.




I had a fear it would go to Hell when the US got all mealy-mouthed in creating the new government that allowed institutionalized religion a foothold.

Jamming a massive, free constitution down Japan's throat worked out so-so, I'm told.

Sorry i dont understand it i think :)



After WWII, Mac Arthur wrote Japan's new constitution, more or less, and said, "Here ya go."

I submit humbly we should have done the same with Iraq, at least insofar as preventing religion from being officially recognized, as well as put in place a number of other provisions to restrict the government from carving up all the oil wealth "for the people", which just turns it into a giant political prize to be abused. I mean, isn't that really the core problem both the left and the right agree on? The oil wealth and the West's passivity (if not complicity) in supporting the dictators who keep it flowing? This just turns it into one giant circus all over again.

[lupus_in_fabula]

Iran's the one that's a shining example of how democracy in the Middle East is supposed to work, according to some in the West.

Iran is also the one who shows how to keep, well, a thousand years of cultural heritage or some such.

[DC]

After WWII, Mac Arthur wrote Japan's new constitution, more or less, and said, "Here ya go."

I submit humbly we should have done the same with Iraq, at least insofar as preventing religion from being officially recognized, as well as put in place a number of other provisions to restrict the government from carving up all the oil wealth "for the people", which just turns it into a giant political prize to be abused. I mean, isn't that really the core problem both the left and the right agree on? The oil wealth and the West's passivity (if not complicity) in supporting the dictators who keep it flowing? This just turns it into one giant circus all over again.

:eek:

While i would love to see them having a constitution and rights like we have, i would not support dictating others a constitution.
A constitution should be worked out and agreed on in a large majority by the people that are suposed to be living according to it.
and when people want to have a state owned company managing the sell of their oil, rather than foreign companys, well thats their choice.

[Brainster]

I see some skepticism here, but there are plenty of red flags. Note the lede:

Ground Zero for the so-called 'war on terror' is a nation where gays and lesbians live in real terror every day. Among the suffering of gay Iraqis is the regular threat (and carrying out) of rape and murder. In July, CNN reported on the case of a young gay man abducted for ransom and raped daily for more than two weeks.

Presumably not by the government of Iraq in any fashion, so why start off with that when the bulk of the article is supposedly about a governmental crackdown on gays?

More than 100 prisoners in Iraq are facing execution. Many of them, says an underground gay rights organization in the country, are believed to have been convicted of the 'crime' of being gay, the UK-based Iraqi-LGBT group revealed this afternoon.

Here come the weasel words. "Many" doesn't tell us how many, and "are believed" leaves open the obvious question of believed by whom.

According to Ali Hili of Iraqi-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week. There is, said Hili, at least one member of Iraqi-LGBT who are among those to be put to death.

The batches of 20 claim seems rather odd given that the total number executed was 33 in 2007 and 34 in 2008. At least one of those to be put to death is LGBT? Out of the 20 this week or the 100 plus scheduled?

And the 100 plus awaiting death doesn't make sense given this claim:

"In 2008, at least 285 people were sentenced to death, and at least 34 executed. In 2007 at least 199 people were sentenced to death and 33 were executed, while in 2006 at least 65 people were put to death.

Shouldn't there in theory be about 410 people awaiting execution, if 250 more were sentenced than executed in 2008 and 160 more sentenced than executed in 2007?

[geni]

Iran's the one that's a shining example of how democracy in the Middle East is supposed to work, according to some in the West.

Not exactly since the republican guard is also a power in the land. However the middle east could do a lot worse than the relgious equiverlent of the pre Parliament Act 1911 british system.

[geni]

Jamming a massive, free constitution down Japan's throat worked out so-so, I'm told.

Japan's democracy is rather odd by western standards (sort of a one party democracy that has a fairly reasonable one party). To a large extent the consitution worked because the population of Japan generaly supported it. After being on the wrong end of WW2 delimiterisation looked pretty good.

[Polaris]

Shouldn't there in theory be about 410 people awaiting execution, if 250 more were sentenced than executed in 2008 and 160 more sentenced than executed in 2007?

Islam also hates math.