Iraqi Islamists Using Chat Sites To Lure And Murder Gay Men

The UK Guardian reports on how Islamic radicals in Iraq use gay chat rooms to lure in and murder gay men.

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims. "It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up," he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed. Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi's group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone. The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. "Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts," he told the Observer. "We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God's forgiveness before they are killed."

One mother tells of finding her son's remains: "We found his body with signs of torture, his anus filled with glue and without his genitals. I will carry this image with me until my dying day." According to the story, it wasn't until the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein that the Islamic campaign to kill gays in Iraq began. Read the entire story.