Iraq

Global News

Added on: 01/31/2024
01/30/2024
Doski Azad dared to live openly as a transgender woman in Iraqi Kurdistan, but her murder two years ago shattered the enclave’s reputation as a relatively liberal…

Global News

Added on: 01/25/2024
01/24/2024
A coalition of rights groups launched a campaign – #SecureOurSocials – on Tuesday, 23 January, calling on social media giant Meta to strengthen protections for LGBT+ people in the Middle…

Global News

Added on: 11/22/2023
11/21/2023
As night falls, Bewar*, a transgender sex worker, puts on her makeup and hairpiece and starts roaming the streets of Sarchinar in Sulaimani, trying to escape the…

Global News

Added on: 09/08/2023
09/07/2023
The Iraqi politician who introduced the bill into parliament is absolutely certain: Any behavior that deviates from heterosexuality is a danger to his country. This is why,…

Global News

Added on: 08/27/2023
Iraq’s parliament is considering a bill to impose the death penalty for same-sex intimacy and imprison transgender citizens. Although Iraq does not currently have an explicitly anti-gay…

Global News

Added on: 08/26/2023
08/25/2023
Days after Iraq banned the use of the words ‘homosexuality’ and ‘gender’, the country’s Parliament is considering a new anti-LGBTQI Bill that imposes the death penalty for…

Global News

Added on: 08/24/2023
(Beirut) – The Iraqi government should immediately withdraw a proposed law currently before parliament that would impose the death penalty for same-sex conduct and imprisonment for transgender expression, Human Rights…

Global News

Added on: 08/23/2023
The Iraqi government should immediately withdraw a proposed law currently before parliament that would impose the death penalty for same-sex conduct and imprisonment for transgender expression, Human…

Global News

Added on: 08/09/2023
08/08/2023
Iraq’s official media regulator on Tuesday ordered all media and social media companies operating in the Arab state not to use the term “homosexuality” and instead to…

Global News

Added on: 08/02/2023
A court in the Kurdistan region of Iraq dealt independent civil society a blow on May 31, 2023, by ordering the closure of Rasan Organization over “its…

Global News

Added on: 07/07/2023
A court in the Kurdistan region of Iraq dealt independent civil society a blow on May 31, 2023, by ordering the closure of Rasan Organization over “its…

Global News

Added on: 02/22/2023
Government officials across the Middle East and North Africa region are targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people based on their online activity on social media,…

Global News

Added on: 12/14/2022
The Iraqi Parliament recently drafted a law to ban publications regarding queer issues. This has alarmed the members of the LGBTQ+ community in the country. The law…

Global News

Added on: 12/07/2022
12/6/2022
On the outskirts of Yogyakarta, an Indonesian city that’s home to many universities, is a small boarding school with a mission that seems out of place in…

Global News

Added on: 12/04/2022
An influential Iraqi cleric who announced his withdrawal from politics four months ago has broken a period of relative silence to launch an anti-LGBTQ campaign. Shiite cleric…

Global News

Added on: 10/19/2022
10/18/2022
In a region where at least 15 nations criminalize homosexuality and in those that don’t, there’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell culture,” queer Arab communities may have…

Global News

Added on: 08/06/2022
Iraqi queer activists are raising alarms over a proposal to criminalise homosexuality in the Middle Eastern country. Although no law currently criminalises homosexuality directly in Iraq, authorities…

Global News

Added on: 07/18/2022
Most of the people around him don’t know he identifies as queer, the 20-year-old Iraqi student told DW. But life in his comparatively conservative southern city of Najaf…

Global News

Added on: 07/17/2022
07/17/2022
Iraq’s government has announced plans to outlaw homosexuality, sparking anger and fear in the Iraqi LGBTQ+ community. On 8 July, the Iraqi parliament began the process of…

Global News

Added on: 03/23/2022
Armed groups in Iraq abduct, rape, torture, and kill lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, with impunity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today with…

Global News

Added on: 02/23/2022
WARNING: Distressing. Doski Azad had been in hiding from her own family. The make-up artist, 23, had been forced to move to another city and start a…

Global News

Added on: 01/26/2022
01/25/2022
Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Iran to free an Iranian LGBTI activist held for the last three months on charges linked to an appearance in a BBC…

Global News

Added on: 04/10/2021
The plight of Iraq’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning or queer (LGBTQ) community returned to the spotlight last week when Kurdish security forces in Sulaymaniyah reportedly…

Global News

Added on: 10/03/2020
10/02/2020
Politicians deepen existing divides when they use inflammatory language, such as hate speech, and this makes their societies more likely to experience political violence and terrorism. That’s…

Global News

Added on: 07/01/2020
Iraqi media outlets have become key promoters of “hate speech” against LGBT people, according to a new report by Iraqi LGBT rights organisation IraQueer published on Tuesday….

Global News

Added on: 06/19/2020
The Iranian state-run news channel Al-Alam released a 22-minute television program labeling the Iraqi organization IraQueer and its network of LGBTQ safe houses as agents of a…

Global News

Added on: 06/10/2020
As a researcher and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, I am often asked: “What…

Global News

Added on: 05/28/2020
In Iraq and Iran, politicians stirred up homophobic disputes focusing on the May 17 celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (Idahobit) and…

Global News

Added on: 05/20/2020
Iraqi political leaders have issued condemnations and called for the expulsion of diplomats following a decision by a number of foreign embassies in the country to fly…

Global News

Added on: 05/19/2020
05/18/2020
Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is head of the Sadrist Movement and the Saraya al-Salam militia, said in March: “One of the most appalling things that…