'Sexual cleansing' rampant in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The improved freedom and security in Iraq do not extend to the homosexual population, who are subject to a sexual cleansing campaign, evidence shows.

Peter Tatchell, human rights activist and member of the gay rights group OutRage!, writes in The Guardian Thursday of the apparent sanctioned murder of the Iraqi homosexual population.

So-called death squads affiliated with the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Badr Organization, as well as the Mehdi Army of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, have been coordinating a cleansing campaign at the behest of several leading religious figures in Iraq.

Revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Tatchell notes, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for the killing of homosexuals in the "most severe way possible."

Tatchell in the short film "Queer Fear -- Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq" points to provisions in the Iraqi Constitution that permit "honor killings," which he says tacitly sanction violence against gays.

A 2006 report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, meanwhile, reports homosexuals in Iraq are increasingly at risk of extrajudicial killings due to their sexual orientation.

Both the United Nations and Tatchell say the situation is under-reported, as many family members fear retribution if they publicize the occurrences.