Group to Aid Iraqi Gays Faces Funding Shortfall

A shortfall of funds might bring an end to the efforts of a gay Iraqi living in London who seeks to offer protection to his less fortunate gay countrymen still living in a lawless and GLBT-hostile Iraq.

PageOneQ posted an article provided by Raw Story about gay Iraqis, living under constant threat of imprisonment, torture, and murder at the hands of roving death squads composed of Shia militants, and the 34-year-old ex-patriot, Ali Hili, who has established a number of safe-houses for gay Iraqis targeted by the Shia extremists.

Iraqi LGBT is based in London, and runs on the efforts of volunteers. The group's Baghdad headquarters were raided last year, and five members arrested; four of them have seemingly disappeared entirely, and the fifth was found murdered and mutilated three days after the raid.

Iraqi LGBT also provides funds for imperiled people, allowing them to move to relatively safer regions within Iraq or to emigrate. Iraqi LGBT has also lent its assistance to 40 asylum seekers looking to escape persecution by fleeing to various countries, including The U.S., Canada, Holland, Germany, and several Middle Eastern countries.

Those efforts may come to an end and the group be forced to disband, however, for want of money to continue its work.

According to Hili, a single safe house costs around $1,800 per month to operate, including rent, drinking water, and two armed guards to secure the premises; the organization's funding comes primarily from numerous small financial gifts and grants, but those revenues are running dry even as the need for the services of Iraqi LGBT becomes more critical.

Hili fears that the safe houses may close by month's end, and dozens of gay Iraqis will once again be at risk.

Hili has submitted applications for additional grants, but those resources may not be available in time, if ever. Said Hili, "Until we get a stable source of funds, the group will always struggle."

The Shia political organization the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq includes an armed band called the Badr. When the Badr was incorporated into the state's police force, the Shia's anti-gay death squads gained the status of official police power. Since then, reports have filtered out of Iraq about gay men being arrested on the street, detained, and executed without judicial process.

Other anti-gay armed groups have freely killed GLBT Iraqis with impunity, including Madhi Army, which is a private militia under an extremist Muslim cleric named Mugtada al-Sadr. The groups are emboldened by a fatwa decreed in 2005 by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, that dictates death to gays and lesbians.

The Raw Story article detailed how two lesbians were murdered on the premises of a safe house a few months ago--together with a boy they had rescued from a life of prostitution.

American media has ignored the fatwah and the activity of anti-gay death squads, though the story has been given attention by Canadian and British journalists.

Hili's group has continued to monitor the situation, however, and Hili said that they have documented incidents of persecution against gays that number in the hundreds.

Every GLBT Iraqi, Hili said, lives in peril.

"Some people need a permanent settlement, while others could be moved to outside Iraq," said Hili.

Hili continued, "We have to study each on a case by case situation."

Iraqi LGBT has an ally in the British gay equality group Outrage!, which has assisted with cases of gay Iraqis being turned away by the British Home Office despite evidence of grave and continuing abuses against gays in Iraq.

Peter Tatchel of Outrage! said that it is not unusual for the Home Office to turn away gay asylum seekers, refusing to acknowledge the validity of anti-gay persecution because it is not specifically addressed in the accords defined at the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention

Said Tatchel, "The United States and European governments have hidden behind this, and used it as an excuse to refuse refugee status to individuals facing persecution in places like Iraq."

Added Tatchel, "Lesbian and gay asylum seekers have a particularly hard time."

Tatchel continued, "I fear it may take many more ghastly homophobic persecutions, and possibly a change in the government, before the current widespread refusal of asylum claims is reversed."

The Raw Story sought comment from the British Home Office, but none was forthcoming.

Said Tatchel, "We warned that even before Saddam's overthrow the repression of lesbian and gay Iraqis would gradually intensify."

Tatchel went on, "What we failed to realize was the rapidity of the rise of Islamist extremism."

LGBT Iraq has also provided medications to Iraqis living with AIDS, a group whom Hili said have also suffered persecution, being murdered because of their HIV status.

Said Hili, "They have been... just killed because [the death squads] see them as prostitutes, and immoral sexually."

As a result, Hili said, "HIV/AIDS patients can't declare their situation to the authorities because they will get killed."

For his own role in attempting to extend some measure of help from his London location, Hili has received threats on his life. "I am taking precautions because of what I am doing," Hili said.

"I am doing everything on the Internet now," continued Hili.

Hili added, "But I have to do something to help."

Said Hili, "I do passionately love Iraq. I miss it every day. I wish I could go back every minute."