Iraq: Violence Against LGBTQ+ Community
Protest: Supporters of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stepped on a rainbow flag
On September 25, 2023, a motorcyclist rushed into a quiet neighborhood of Al-Dawoudi in Baghdad, Iraq, and fired three fatal shots at a social media influencer named Noor Alsaffar in front of his residence. Noor Alsaffar, known as "Noor BM" on social media, was a 23-year-old model and makeup artist who identified as male. He accumulated over 370,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram for his short videos on cross-dressing, hair and makeup styles and popular dance moves. But such popularity came with a great price, as he endured online abuse and continuous probing of his gender identity and sexual orientation.
"I'm not transgender and I'm not gay," Alsaffar said in a 2020 interview on Iraq's Al Walaa channel. "I don't have other tendencies. I'm only a cross-dresser and a model." Alsaffar said that he was not afraid of his appearance on TikTok but was cautious, according to his interview with a YouTube blogger, Samir Jermani, in 2021.
Nonetheless, Alsaffar was killed a month after the Iraqi government proposed a new bill that explicitly makes same-sex relations and transgender expression a criminal offense. According to Human Rights Watch, if this bill passes, people in same-sex relationships will face the death penalty or life in prison. Those who promote homosexuality will face a minimum seven-year sentence in prison with a fine between $7,700 and $11,500. And those that imitate women will face a three-year sentence with a fine between $3,800 and $7,700. Around the same time, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) also banned the term "homosexuality" and "gender" in all licensed CMC media and apps, such as the Iraqi Radio and Television Union and asked "homosexuality" to be replaced by "sexual deviance."
The killing of Alsaffar raised new concerns for the safety of the LGBTQ+ community and social media influencers in Iraq. Reactions to Alsaffar's death are divided. Some, such as The Iraqi LGBTQ rights group IraQueer mourned and posted about Alsaffar's death on X, formerly known as Twitter, with hashtags #Transphobia and #MurderofTransPeople. In contrast, others supported and celebrated the killing. Recently, many protests have been led by the supporters of Shiite Muslim factions, where they burned down rainbow flags in response to recent Quran burnings in Denmark and Sweden.
The Iraqi government has used "morality" laws to prosecute LGBTQ+ people and cracked down on human rights groups for years. Amir Ashour, founder and chair of IraQueer and Iraq’s only openly gay activist, shared with The Guardian that violence against LGBTQ+ community members and supporters is more visible in Baghdad and the middle of Iraq, where systematic killing campaigns are present and supported by the government. Shia militias and ISIS have been the leading groups persecuting LGBTQ+ Iraqis with impunity, according to a 2015 Guardian report.
In August, 2023, Human Rights Watch denounced the Iraqi government’s new bill as violating international human rights law. As a member of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, Iraq is responsible for providing its citizens the rights to "life, liberty, privacy, free expression and security of the person." Furthermore, the United Nations Human Rights Committee definitively states that "sexual orientation is a status protected against discrimination."
Backsliding on gender equality and freedom is a global trend. Today, homosexuality is still illegal in 66 countries across all continents except Western Europe, according to the Human Dignity Trust. To be safe in countries that publicly discriminate and criminalize LGBTQ+ rights means hiding gender identity and sexual orientation in complete secrecy. It also means to be inhumanely indifferent to the violence against the LGBTQ+ community. The 2015 Guardian report also mentions that over the past decade, millions of Iraqis have been internally displaced and have fled to countries, particularly the U.S. and Western Europe, where they have more tolerant policies.
However, far-right political parties are increasingly getting into power among these progressive and democratic countries. For the U.S. specifically, its credibility on LGBTQ+ advocacy around the world is closely tied to its continuous fight for gender equality at home. There have been over 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign. How the U.S. will continue to fight for LGBTQ+ rights worldwide will largely depend on the policy priority of the next administration.
In response to Iraq’s new bill proposal, there are no easy answers to how the foreign intervention will take place. LGBTQ+ advocacy is widely perceived by authorities in the Middle East as “a part of foreign agenda to subjugate the region,” according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). Activists in the Middle East are becoming more strategic in increasing their visibility and acceptance. Instead of following the Western narratives, they are detaching themselves from advocates in the West to show solidarity with their own country and build trust with local communities.
What the U.S. can do in this case is not to intervene and exert control over the activism agenda in the Middle East but to offer tangible support, such as rethinking its immigration policies, reducing barriers and providing more aid and welfare services to its LGBTQ+ refugees.