Witchhunt in Iraq Our World

It first appeared in the streets of Baghdad. In the name of God, they

said, they were all armed. They gave names and addresses of the

shameless. The witch hunt had begun. We had cases where kids were cut

from the bodies. They were bashed with concrete blocks. Metal rods

were put through their scolds. thought that by killing them, they

were cleansing society. His is the story of modern-day Iraq, where

young men and women are killed for In a safe house, for Friends await

would news of it assignment. They too will me because of what

happened to them in Baghdad. Identifying them may put their

families in danger. Just before you came here there was an incident at

a party in Baghdad with the police raided the party. What happened?

was a small get together and soberly somebody came into the door

with police and soldiers and started to beat us and strip us

naked making us walk outside. A soldier told me I was protecting

the country and what are you doing? You have sex. They put cold water

on us and beat us. I was terrified they would rape us. A wide were you

terrified of being raped? I was skit because this has happened

before at the police checkpoint. You were raped by the police?

we would gain rate at the checkpoint. It was a hit the bride

that got them out of jail. They fled Iraq. They were threatened to

be killed. Much has changed in Baghdad since I was last here two

years ago. The American troops have gone. Explosions still happen but a

lot more rare. It's still very dangerous but live here on the

street feels much more normal. What has also changed is that for one

group of people, in Baghdad today, it's more dangerous than ever

before. These days, it's not just bad luck all being in the wrong

place at the wrong time. It is the fitting of your clothes or your

haircut that made determined where you live or die in Baghdad. The

anti-gay campaign by the militia in Baghdad has been well-documented.

The evidence we uncovered shows the country's democratically elected

government is complacent about the persecution of gay men and women in

Iraq. Here in one of the most conservative and Polotanu district

of Baghdad, a campaign against them and this first began. In 2009,

human rights Watch said dozens may be hundreds of gay people in Iraq

have been killed. This report includes description of torture

used against gay men. Many are too horrific for us to describe.

Mutilation of the bodies. They would describe -- discovered in the

rubbish. It's largely controlled by the Army, the Shia militia, some of

the most brutal killings of women in Iraq have happened here.

Officially, the Government has disbanded the Army at the residence

said it has made little difference here on the ground. Like the

teacher, the radical cleric -- cleric, he believes homosexuality

or the food six, is a sin and an illness. On camera he disapproves

of this violence. TRANSLATION: Islam rejects homosexuality. We

cannot accept this. In it our tradition, or in the religion. We

can say that measures taken against these people are also wrong. The

rejection of homosexuality should be within them all. -- the law. He

is a resident here. He is not gay but he takes a big risk trying to

help those who were there. It is less than 2009. The militia are

against the homosexuals. It's very difficult for gay people here. Most

of them had been killed or have left. Leaving the city also carries

a big risk. To move around in Baghdad, you need to pass through

India's military and police checkpoints. -- military and police

checkpoints. It is not the militia who they are hiding from but the

police. A riot at this safe house. The police raided their flat. They

went out but the remit was arrested. The new room mate was here for two

months. Ever since his family threatened to kill him. I am tired

and sad and have no freedom. I cannot say I am gay. It cannot

leave my life. I need to stay you doing nothing waiting. I wish we

could show you their faces. He has big, dark, worried our eyes. She is

very pretty. I would never guess that she was that way. She has a

very trendy haircut. It would be very normal and the west but not

here in Iraq. Is it up make it you killed here. There are three it is

much bigger than before. It's not just the militia but the police and

the Government who come after us. cannot tell her many times I was

raped at the checkpoints by the police. The worst was at the

checkpoint in a street asking me for ID and they told me to get out

of the car it was night time. They put me against the wall and I was

raped by a nine police. The story of rape like this from people who

oppose and sexuality is mind- boggling but a reflection of the

way that men and women in this conservative society relate to each

other. The man who was raped, conceded like a femur part of the

gay relationship, not men who is raping you, the rapist. Both are

supposed to be in a homosexual relationship. The idea is that the

masculine moon, that part is evil. I don't know what to say. That was

the strongest part of the relationship. He deserves to leave.

The week apart, the one presenting the female aspect in the

relationship, deserves today. are the main charged with keeping

back did save. Yet here, at the checkpoint, they say the right to

most commonly violated. This checkpoint is manned by the

Interior Ministry. A neighbour to you double story. In this country,

you can be a policeman by day and with the militia at night.

Allegiances make it easy for the Government to blame the militia for

these killings of gay men. Damian and activists say it is the state

He was a former policeman but he quit because he could not stand

what he was seeing or taking part in and the resting of homosexuals

and stock. In 2006 to 2008 we were fighting the terrace. We did not

pay any attention to gay people. The Government was respecting the

rulebook law. Now, there's a lot of Ironically, it was under the old

regime of Saddam Hussein that gave women and men in Iraq enjoyed the

most freedom. The US-led occupation gave rise to more conservative

groups, tolerance, especially towards anything connected to the

West, became increasingly scarce. Ask anyone in the streets of

Baghdad and they will give you a long list of reasons, cultural and

religious, as to why homosexuality is not accepted. But what is

happening in Iraq goes far beyond the Sting and homophobia out that

exist everywhere in the Middle East. Here, there is very clear evidence

of systematic and organised persecution of people who are

believed to be gay. He is still mourning his boyfriend. He worked

at a police station in Baghdad. Six weeks ago, he came to work to find

his boyfriend in one of the pre- trial detention cells. There was no

official arrest warrant and there was nothing that he could do to

help him. Being gay is not illegal in Iraq. It is not a crime. But he

was arrested because he was gay. They call them puppies. They would

beat him, saying that you poppies are destroying our country. We must

kill you all. He was in the police station for a week. The last time

he saw his boyfriend was the day before he died. I was so upset. I

lost all control. I had a fight with the guards. I was screaming,

why did you kill my lover. They said, since you are like him, you

should be dead as well. I started looking for any documents relating

to his death. I told them I was going to go to the human rights

regulations and tell them everything. But they threatened to

kill me and I had to leave like that. In Iraq, men have been

targeted endured just for looking like they might be gay. He says he

started receiving death threats in February, around the same time when

the Iraqi and Western media went into a frenzy reporting that dozens

of young men were being killed around Baghdad. In the West, they

are teenagers with pounds haircuts and love of punk music. In reaction

to media reports, Iraq's interior ministry issued a statement, saying

that the phenomenon was and tannic and had to be eradicated. One local

organisation in Baghdad, which closely monitored the events that

followed, claims that the Iraqi political establishment was behind

the killings. They put guards at the gateways of universities. These

policemen began to threaten the young men, if they were not going

to cut their hair short, if they do not dress in a respectable way,

quite a quiet, respectable, and the police man cannot guarantee the

safety of the young men. So it was another way off the government to

tell all the young people, if you do not submit to a traditional way,

into a religiously excepted hair style and appearance, you will be

cured. Media reports seem to have been exaggerated, but nobody knows

how many young people really died in 2012. This boy was a long talk

deaths of 11 young men and one woman that the United Nations has

managed to confirm. The UN believes the real number is much higher,

that being gay, or been perceived as a gay, has such a stigma that

many families try to hide why their children has died. He is neither a

day nor IMO, he just likes skinny jeans and has slightly long hair.

He told me that two days before this interview, a friend of his

were shot at close range inside the city. He was gay and had been

threatened before. With so much fear, loathing and secrecy, it is

difficult to establish the exact level of the government's

involvement in the anti-gay campaign. But the accounts of 17

gay men interviewed for this film are consistent. The interior

ministry statement sparked the new wave of violence, or have had

friends or boyfriends killed, and all said arrests were still

happening. I just got off the fine with one of our contacts, who is

gay and we were supposed to enter the him today, but he cancelled

because he says he is too afraid to leave his house. He said that 15

gay men, they were arrested this morning. There is no way that we

can verify this. The interior ministry ignored our numerous

requests for comment. The Ministry of Human Rights has said it could

not help gay people, because they were not considered a minority in

Iraq. I went to see a person who speaks on behalf of Iraq's Prime

Minister. We do not have that many numbers in Iraq. Two, there are

limited cases of violation. We cannot protect them. We have a

different had but a custom, and we cannot legalise the homosexual act

in the country. We are not talking about homophobia, we are talking

about systematic and quite organised persecution and killings

of gay men and women, what is the right the government doing to stop

that? And definitely we stop it already. We did not have any cases.

As I said, we do not have that big number of homosexuals and gays,

they do not have the same freedom in the West. Gays issue respect of

the behaviour and moderate of the values, in order to be respected.

It is a bit like telling a black person not to be black. No, bat is

nature. Homosexuality is not by nature, it is a behaviour. Not a

single politician or public figure in Iraq has stood up to stop the

killings, and people do not see it as an issue. Life is hard for

everybody here, everybody in Iraq knows someone who has died. Before

2003, this used to be a children's playground. Look at it now. There

is no end in sight to all the greats, there isleft to the

Greystones, and it is in places like is that you begin to

comprehend the sheer scale of suffering and loss that this

country has been through it. Activists say that up to 1,000 gay

men and women have been cured in Iraq since 2004. Most of them in

recent years. A drop in the ocean of tens of thousands of deaths, but

this is why some believe that these targeted killings I just ate

destroying the very promise of free Iraq. If the live in a community

where one person does not feel safe, they will kill him. When they

finish him, they would turn to the second person, they stay quiet, the

third person, they will come and they will kill you, and nobody will

speak. If we stay quiet about the killing of the gay person, the

woman will be cured, and the other marginalised will be killed, other

minorities will be killed, and none of us will be around. Back in the

safe house, outside Iraq, the memories of what happened at home

and the worries about friends they left behind become too much. The

interview ends in tears. All four of them have left the room and

there are now crying in the bedroom. What have I done, I am so wrong and

so bad, he weeps, now I will never see my mother again. We are not

animals, we are human, we are Muslims as well. We are a good

Muslims. What do we deserve to be killed and tortured in such ways?

It is like we did not exist, she said to me. The government does not

want them to exist. It wants an... and the United Nations says Iraq is

in violation of international law, and they aren't neglecting acts of

violence against people, and it makes to the state a perpetrator in

the crime. But there is brave little the UN or anyone can do to