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. The report, titled “BIASED: Iraqi Media and the Spread of Anti-LGBT+ Rhetoric”, analysed a range of TV, print and online media outlets and the prevalence of writers and speakers repeating tropes and misconceptions about LGBT people on the outlets. In the past five years, the discussion of homosexuality in Iraqi media has become considerably more prominent, with a particular increase occurring since 2019. “Our analysis of the search results found that the overwhelming majority of the media coverage was biased against the LGBT+ community, encouraging people to reject such identities,” the report read. “On many occasions, the coverage went as far as calling for the elimination of LGBT+ people from society to ‘protect’ innocent children and youth who are ‘easily influenced'”.