Alex Foster

Stop executions of gay Iraqis

By | Tue 31st March 2009 - 1:10 pm

Iraqi-LGBT reports that the administration in Iraq is about to begin executing gay Iraqis.

Urgent action is needed to halt the execution of 128 prisoners on death row in Iraq. Many of those awaiting execution were convicted for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality, according to IRAQI-LGBT, a UK based organisation of Iraqis supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Iraq.

According to Ali Hili of IRAQI-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week.

IRAQI-LGBT urgently requests that the UK Government, Human Rights Groups and the United Nations Human Rights Commission intervene with due speed to prevent this tragic miscarriage of justice from going ahead.

Earlier in the month, officials working in the UK Borders Agency advised a gay Iraqi that they would be returning him to Iraq.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats’ housing spokeswoman, who is the Iraqi’s MP, is perplexed by a recommendation from the UKBA that the Iraqi conduct his relationships in private.

The document says: “Even if your client’s homosexuality were to be established it is viewed that it would be possible for your client to conduct such relationships in private on his return to Iraq. This would allow your client to express his sexuality, albeit in a more limited way than he could do elsewhere.”

Teather, the MP for Brent East, said: “Immigration ministers need to show some humanity. If this deportation goes ahead there is a terrible risk that this man will be killed. How can we possibly claim to be a country that values human rights if we are willing to endanger a life in this way?”

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One Comment

  • Ana 2nd Apr '09 - 1:51am

    Just sad, about the fact that most people won’t care, unless their own family were scheduled for execution for the mere sin of being born how God made them.

    I urge my American brethren to stand up and decry the execution of 128 human beings.

    I have plenty of gay family, we are lucky not to belong from barbaric ideologies.

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