Repression against the LGBT community is intensifying in Iraq. Parliament adopted on Saturday a bill criminalizing homosexual relations and gender transitions, with penalties of up to fifteen years’ imprisonment, after a first version which initially provided for the death penalty.
In reaction, Amnesty International criticized a “violation of fundamental human rights”, believing that the amendments adopted on Saturday “endanger Iraqis who are already harassed on a daily basis”, in a country where sexual minorities live in hiding. These amendments modify an anti-prostitution law of 1988 and were adopted during a session at which 170 deputies out of 329 were present.
Prison for behavior deemed effeminate
The new provisions provide for sentences of ten to fifteen years in prison for homosexual relations, as well as for swinging practices involving wives.
The law also bans “any organization promoting homosexuality in Iraq”, with a prison sentence of seven years for “promoting” homosexual relations. It prohibits “the change of biological sex on the basis of individual desires or inclinations” and provides for a penalty of one to three years of imprisonment for any person or doctor involved in this transition. A similar punishment is provided for any man whose behavior is deemed effeminate.
A community frequently targeted by violence
In Iraq, the small LGBT+ community is the frequent target of “kidnappings, rapes, torture and assassinations” from armed groups enjoying “impunity”, noted Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report in 2022.
The country used the 1969 Penal Code to convict LGBT+ people, relying on an article providing for “life imprisonment or several years of imprisonment” for sodomy.
The American executive “deeply concerned”
MP Raëd al-Maliki, who initiated the amendments, acknowledged that a vote initially planned for mid-April was postponed to avoid “impacting” a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani. “There is an American and European refusal of the law,” he admitted.
“Today we know that Iraqi society rejects (homosexuality), but there is a deliberate promotion of cultures that we do not recognize,” he further said. “It is the future that worries us and the law is a kind of prevention to protect society. »
The US State Department is “deeply concerned” by this legislation, spokesperson Matthew Miller reacted on Saturday on X, deploring that the law threatens the most vulnerable people in Iraqi society and “undermines the efforts of economic and political reform of the government.