Nobody wants to talk about gays in Iraq, much less who is killing them.
By Lennox Samuels | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 26, 2008

When militiamen from the Mahdi Army came by the compact, two-story stone home in the Doura neighborhood of Baghdad, they weren't looking for Sunnis to harass. They were hunting gays. "Bring us your son's cell phone," one ordered the middle-aged man who came to the gate. They wanted to check if his son, Nadir, had been calling foreigners--and in fact he had only hours earlier called this reporter to set up a meeting, and he had repeatedly called a gay nongovernmental organization (NGO) in London. Fortunately, Nadir was ready for them and produced a "clean" phone he keeps for just such a threat. This time they left, but vowed to come back if they found any evidence he was gay--or was talking to undesirable foreigners. Now that Iraq's sectarian war has cooled off, it's open season on homosexuals and others whose lifestyles infuriate religious hardliners.

Sometimes the act of reporting a story is revealing in itself--especially when it proves particularly difficult. This was the case when NEWSWEEK began looking into the problems of Iraq's homosexuals after hearing reports of secret safe houses around Baghdad where many of them were taking refuge from the militias' self-appointed morality police. After weeks of inquiries, NEWSWEEK managed to find Nadir and persuade him to arrange a visit to one of the safe houses he helps run. Instead, the Mahdi militia rousted him the night before. Established in 2004, the militia is the armed wing of the organization led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been an implacable foe of the Maliki government. Terrified, Nadir contacted people at the London-based gay NGO that finances the safe house, and they instructed him to break off the visit.

That was only one of many problems reporting on gays in Iraq. Iraqi authorities scoffed at the subject--when not scolding a reporter for even asking about it. Some of NEWSWEEK's own local staff were wary of the story. Virtually no government officials would sit for an interview. And the United Nations human-rights office, which has a big presence in Iraq, dodged the subject like a mine field. As with a number of Muslim societies where homosexuality is officially nonexistent but widely practiced, the policy in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule was "don't ask, don't tell." But that has changed. Iraqi LGBT, the London NGO that Nadir works for, says more than 430 gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2003. For the country's beleaguered gays, it's a friendless landscape...

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IRAQI LGBT SAFE HOUSE CAMPAIGN

Video: Treatment of LGBT People in Iraq by Police

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."  (Michelangelo)

What a great reminder for me and my family at this time. Our eldest is undertaking Year 12 trial exams this week, and most of the senior class are 'over' school. They are impatient to get out into the world and break free from the confines of the classroom. Yet they only have a couple of months to go to finish 13 years of schooling. So many times, just when the breakthrough is around the corner, or the blessing we have been waiting on is imminent, we give up. Life just gets too hard, the discipline needed to see something through to the end hurts too much.

We know we are called to have our own business, to fund the many God-given dreams we have on our hearts to see come to pass in our city. It will take major finance to open the doors for houses for homeless youth, an emergency shelter/safe house for children taken from violent/abusive situations rather than waiting in a police station for a DOCS worker to find them a home, more homes built on the foster care farm charity we serve, and my big dream - a place for newborns to pre-schoolers who are either suffering drug withdrawal from birth, trauma from a violent situation or just need a place to be held and loved, washed and clothed in sweet-smelling pyjamas, and tucked into crisp sheets under a fluffy doona (eiderdown) blanket. Where the only thing they have to worry about is what cereal they are having for breakfast or which toy to play with.

If you have dreams in your heart, keep stirring them up. One day, somehow, we can see them come to pass. And even if they never see the light of day, I would rather have dreamt big than not at all!

Have a blessed day,

Shani

As for all you NIMBY’s (Not-In-My-Backyard!) around here, you need to seriously check yourselves. Would you rather have a safe house, where the majority of occupants are striving to keep clean, down the block—or would you rather have a heroin-addicted, unemployed dry-wall hanger breaking in your back door to steal your TV to feed his habit?

You may scoff, but this is your choice.

Source: http://www.thetimes-tribune.com

Øv, det regnede rigtig meget i dag - i hvert fald for meget til at jeg kunne komme til at spille golf. Til gengæld var der tid til at tage et foto af den silende regn på terassen.

Klik på fotoet for at se mange flere detaljer.

Ebenezer Village situated just outside Cape Town, South Africa, in the small town of Atlantis just 40km up the west coast was started in 2006 with no help from government and a lack of funding. Originally it was intended that they take in abandoned and abused babies but it has since grown to accept kids up to the age of 12, due to the needs within the community.

I came into contact with them while working in Atlantis, did a tour of their facilities and met those wonderful kids who touched my heart beyond anything I can put into words. Their battle is no mean feat, they struggle but never give up hope. On top of feeding, clothing and parenting these children they have a feeding program for the community. Kids and adults alike line up outside their kitchen window at lunchtimes to get a plate of steaming hot food that they wouldn't be able to get at home. The faces of those who they help I will never forget as long as I live.

How Ebenezer Village started

In 2003, Mathilda and Rebekka got involved with supporting a little orphaned AIDS baby in Atlantis, who was living with her granny in her neighbours garden in a shack. As the granny was aware of the condition of the baby she was not interested in taking care of the basic needs of the little girl. Mathilda took the little one in for a couple of hours a day to bath her and give her a few warm bottles. Formula or clothes given to the granny were given to her other daughter who also had a baby of the same age. Little Anneline had a tough life and suffered from a lot of related illnesses to the HIV Virus. Mathilda requested through Child Welfare to foster the baby as we felt for the little girl and her situation. The granny was worried to lose the government grant, which she had been using for herself to buy alcohol, and within hours after the Child Welfare had contacted her, she disappeared. Neither Anneline nor the Granny has been seen since.

After some research they decided to build a home for abused and abandoned babies like Anneline. The aim of the Ebenezer Village is therefore to provide a temporary or long-term safe place for orphaned, abandoned and abused babies. We are trying to optimise a holistic approach where the physical, spiritual, social, intellectual and emotional wellbeing of these children is incorporated. This also includes the care and comforting of terminally ill (AIDS) babies and provide hospice care.

We believe that every baby has the right to have a full stomach, a warm bed and some loving arms. None of these babies asked to be HIV infected, and therefore we want to give them the best loving care, no matter what their life expectancy is. The Ebenezer Village will continue to meet the nutritional needs of the street children and continue the soup kitchen for local children in need.

How can you help?

Due to the shear number of intakes they have on a weekly basis clothes, food, toys and educational materials are always slim pickings so those things are always needed. There are two ways that you could help this amazing foundation. Firstly, from experience, I found that creating awareness in the work place can be very effective, getting others involved and spurring on the movement of giving. While working at my old company we set up a box in our kitchens in which people can put the stuff they had no need for any more and inviting them to go along when we did the deliveries. By doing this we created a bond of giving to others and an awareness through out the company, our actions spurred others into action and it became a revolution of sorts :). If you don't want to get your company involved or would rather do it more personally then give them a call on the below contact details, they always welcome visitors, go meet these amazing kids that always have smiles on their faces or help out with the soup run.

If you want to help out but find it daunting going to Ebenezer Village and prefer someone else with you take a friend or let me know and I'll join you. These kids taught me a lot in life, the hell that they have been through would make even the hardest person cry and yet they play on and their smiles are the biggest you have ever seen. My heart goes out to them and their new parents who give continually without complaining... Amazing people!

To contact Ebenezer Village

Ebenezer Village
Nottingham Road
Atlantis 7349
Tel./Fax 021 572 11 02

Website

U.S. invasion has made life worse for Iraqi LGBT community

BY MELISSA MEINZER

Iraq has never been a great place to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. But since the U.S. invasion began five years ago, it has become much worse, according a gay Iraqi who fled to London two years ago.

"Are gay people in the United States, Britain and Australia aware of what their governments have done to our country?" writes Ali Hili on his group's blog, Iraqi LGBT (iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com). "Their armies invaded and occupied our land, destroyed the infrastructure of government, and created the chaos and lawlessness that has allowed religious fundamentalism to flourish and to terrorize women and gay people."

The chaos and resulting power grabs have made Iraq an extremely dangerous place to be queer or gender variant. "Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005," he writes.

So Hili formed Iraqi LGBT, a group dedicated to providing safe houses for LGBT people living in the war-torn nation. And the University of Pittsburgh's LGBT group, the Rainbow Alliance, is hoping to help.

The group, which recently had to close three of its five houses because of financial constraints, provides safe group housing, food and medical care for LGBT people living in Iraq. Many of the residents it serves need medical treatment for HIV or gender transitioning.

"With strong social and political oppression against homosexuals and specific targeting by Islamic militia groups, LGBT Iraqis face abduction and death in the streets," says Sean Casey, director of the Global Equality Network for Heartland Alliance. A Chicago-based nonprofit human-rights organization, Heartland Alliance handles U.S. fund-raising for the group.

Aaron Arnold, the president of Pitt's Rainbow Alliance, interned with Casey last summer and learned about Iraqi LGBT through him.

"We'd done some international issues before; we figured our membership would be pretty interested," says Arnold, a junior majoring in sociology with certificates in African studies and women, gender and sexuality studies. The student group is collecting funds and plans to match students' donations with money from its own coffers. Next week is Pride Week at the university, so Rainbow will be staffing a fund-raising table on campus and hopes to collect money then. (To donate without visiting campus, click the donation button on iraqilglbtuk.blogspot.com.)

Some students, says Arnold, have objected to their fund-raising efforts, but he thinks it's because they're misinformed about what the group seeks to do.

"I think a lot of people on the surface hear that we're trying to support LGBT people in Iraq and [think] that it's antiwar or not patriotic," he says. "We're just trying to emphasize that these are human beings that were leading relatively normal lives until the infrastructure of their country collapsed. It's not a statement about war; it's a statement about humanity."

Benefit Party for Iraqi LGBT at the North Star Fund
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 6:30 – 8:30
520 Eighth Avenue, 22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018

Due to lack of funding, Iraqi LGBT has been forced to shut down three safe houses in southern Iraq. These houses sheltered LGBT Iraqis receiving death threats from Islamic militias.
Help keep Iraqi LGBT’s two remaining safe houses open and protect 40 LGBT persons who need shelter, food, and medical care. Several of the Iraqis are HIV-positive and ill. This fundraiser will be addressed by Iraqi LGBT's London-based coordinator, Ali Hili, via speaker phone. Please come and bring your checkbook!

Doug Ireland

Iraqi LGBT

Heartland Alliance, Benefit Party, New York, April 22, 2008

Iraqi LGBT have recently obtained new video evidence highlighting the brutality of the Badr Corps and police treatment of LGBT people in Iraq. It shows LGBT people being arrested, held in custody and having their heads shaved and taunted with songs of hate and revenge.

The first video shows two gay men celebrating a wedding ceremony when they are stopped at a checking point between Al-Kut and Baghdad and violently pulled out of their car.

The second video is of Ali, a Trans member of Iraqi LGBT, he was living in a Basra safe house supported and run by the group. Many LGBT people face threats and violence, and these shelters are the only refuges from attacks.

[dailymotion id=x46vrf&v3]

In November, Iraqi LGBT was forced to close the three safe houses it ran in the south of Iraq, including the one in Basra, due to lack of funds.

“We have, sadly, lost contact with many of those who were sheltered in our safe houses which we were obliged to close,” Ali Hili of Iraqi LGBT explained, adding, “Of those with whom we have still had some contact, we know that they have sold everything they had to survive and rent a room to live in, as they were all rejected by their families because of their homosexuality. Some have been forced to work as prostitutes because they are too obviously gay and can get no other work.”

Iraqi LGBT members obtained the above listed video by bribing a police officer with $200.

“The video, apparently made by police for their amusement, is disturbing[...] in addition to showing the police standing around and laughing and making crude remarks in Arabic about Ali’s sexuality, it is also dubbed with hate and revenge music in Arabic.”

Iraqi LGBT has documented over 400 separate cases of LGBT Iraqis who have been murdered by Shia militias.

Most of these killings have been the work of the Badr Corps, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest Shiite political formation and the core of the current US-backed government. The Badr-Corps’ spiritual guide, the 77-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a death-to-all-gays fatwa in 2005.

New reports we have received from underground gay contacts inside Iraq suggest intensified homophobic abuse, threats, intimidation and violence by fundamentalist supporters of Sistani and other Shia leaders.Sources inside Iraq report new arrests and disappearing of gays and trans people.

These killings are just the ones information is available about. They are the tip of an iceberg of religious-motivated summary executions. Gay Iraqis are living in fear of discovery and murder.

Hussein, Mawla, Najim, Haydar, Khalid, Basim, and Rasool — are all presumed dead, but their last names cannot be published on the slight chance that one or more of them might still be alive.

Three transgendered Iraqis also disappeared last month in different parts of Iraq after receiving multiple threats of death if they didn’t move out of the neighborhoods where they lived.

Friends can send Donations to IRAQI LGBT:
The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi's facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.
Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighboring countries.

You can review these videos on this link.

iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-video-footage-show-treatment-of.html

More Iraqi LGBT news:

iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

"Delray Beach is in a class by itself, experts say, because of its compact geography and critical mass of recovering addicts who cross paths daily in the shops and bistros along Atlantic Avenue. They fly beneath the radar of tourists oblivious to telltale signs of addiction, like unapologetic chain smoking. But they see one another everywhere." --Read more here.

Ali Hili, the 33-year-old gay Iraqi exile who is the founder and coordinator of Iraqi LGBT, which has members, supporters, and informants throughout Iraq, told Gay City News this week by telephone from London, "New reports tell us that the seven gay men were arrested by the police in the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Basra, and Ammara, and no one has been able to obtain any news of them since December 2."

Hili said the men - named Hussein, Mawla, Najim, Haydar, Khalid, Basim, and Rasool - are all presumed dead, but their last names cannot be published on the slight chance that one or more of them might still be alive. He added that three transgendered Iraqis also disappeared last month in different parts of Iraq "after receiving multiple threats of death if they didn't move out of the neighborhoods where they lived."

"The situation is getting worse day by day, and most of our group's members and contacts inside Iraq are so afraid that even talking about the situation of Iraqi LGBT people over the phone or through chat rooms on the Internet is something they're too scared to do," Hili said. "Most of the gay community are using secret code words to mislead authorities about their locations, identities, and activities when speaking on the phone or communicating in chat rooms."

Since its founding in November 2005 by Hili and 30 other exiled gay asylum-seekers in the UK, Iraqi LGBT has documented well over 400 separate cases of LGBT Iraqis who have been murdered by the death squads. Most of these killings have been the work of the Badr Corps, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest Shiite political formation and the core of the current US-backed government. The Badr-Corps' spiritual guide, the 77-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a death-to-all-gays fatwa in 2005.

Last year, the Badr Corps was integrated into the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, and its anti-gay death squads now wear police uniforms, have full martial powers, and can carry out kidnappings and murders of LGBT Iraqis with impunity. This reporter has been chronicling the anti-gay murder campaign in the pages of this newspaper since early 2006, and links to previous articles on Iraq may be found at the bottom of the web version of this article at gaycitynews.com.

Also this week, Iraqi LGBT released a video of the muscular interrogation of a transgendered gay man by Iraqi police. "His name is Ali, but he was living his life as a woman, and was a member of our group," Hili told Gay City News, "and was one of those who had been living in the safe house we ran in Basra for those threatened with death."

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See Also : Iraq : The Targeting of Gays and Lesbians

DAVID Hicks's "safe house" has been discovered as he celebrated the new year. It is believed he watched New Year's Eve fireworks in a quiet street.

In essence, I see the conflict as one that underscores our very notions of safety and democracy. If fruitful discussion (and thus knowledge building) comes out of the confrontation (by confrontation I mean the testing of two or more degrees of disagreement in fruitful dialogue) between varying ideologies and ideas, how can we create a space that is both safe for those who have traditionally been considered "other" (and I am by no means condoning the "othering" of these, or any, groups/individuals) and allow in that space a hearing for varying ideas to be tested/discussed without some individual or group feeling silenced in one way or another (if at least by implication)? I see this as one of the greatest difficulties that teachers who use technology to create virtual (digital) spaces and physical spaces have in their classrooms (and teachers in traditional classrooms). How do we create both an open, egalitarian site of collaboration while encouraging discourse through conflicting ideas in order for our students to test and understand the foundations of their own knowledge and how society has impacted those foundations?

In studying space over the past two months specifically (and I plan on continuing this endeavor for a while) I am beginning to get a sense of the overall picture of how space is being located in composition studies and I am realizing that there is a great deal of work being done in this area but there is a great deal more that needs to be done. My current research interest revolves around a two-part question that I believe to be related. First, how are virtual (digital) spaces, those created for students by teachers in the composition classroom, related to activity systems and genres? Second, how has feminist pedagogical discourse and its lineage affected our conceptions of the "safe house," "safe haven" or "safe space" in the electronic contact zone? I link these two because I believe that in creating these virtual activity systems through specific genres, we can enable and enact safe spaces for our students to collaborate and challenge ideas (construct knowledge). I believe this area of research will prove quite useful and interesting to both me and the community. I relate all of this back to my earlier comments in this post about the apparent conflict between safety and knowledge construction by noting that I hope my research will help me answer some of these questions, or at least provide a better framework from which to ask new ones.

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Lack of funds may force group to return imperiled gay Iraqis to the streets
Julie Weisberg, The Raw Story
Published: Tuesday October 16, 2007

Iraq’s lesbian, gay and transgendered residents have become an all-too frequent target of that occupied nation’s lawlessness. Now they face the possibility of losing the lone organization that has sought to protect them from violence.

Friends of Iraqi LGBT, an all-volunteer human rights organization currently based in London, runs a series of safe houses in Iraq for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Iraqis who have been targeted for persecution -- including beatings, imprisonment and even death -- by militant Shia death squads that roam the war-torn nation’s streets.

Last year, five members of the group were taken into custody by Iraqi police during a raid on Iraqi LGBTs headquarters in Baghdad. So far, only one of the five has been accounted for.

Amjad, 27, was found dead and mutilated in the same area three days later.

Iraqi LGBT was formed early last year after reports of homophobic violence in Iraq spiked. The organization provides financial assistance to LGBT individuals in particularly dangerous areas of Iraq, allowing them to move to relatively safer parts of the country, or seek refuge in neighboring countries.

In all, the group has assisted some 40 gay Iraqi asylum seekers in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as Sweden, Germany, Canada, Holland, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

But now Iraqi LGBT’s life-saving work is in jeopardy, as the organization is facing a critical shortage of funding. Ali Hili, the group's founder and coordinator, spoke to RAW STORY in a recent phone interview from London.

According to Hili, 34, the cost of funding a safe house -- which serves 10 to 12 people at a time -- is about $1,800 a month: $800 for rent, usually paid three months in advance; $400 for the salaries of two armed guards for each house, an essential part of securing each facility; and $600 per month for gas, fuel for electricity generators, food, clean drinking water and hygienic supplies...
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See also : En Irak, la chasse aux gays est ouverte, Blaise Gauquelin, Rue 89

U pitanju je futuristički industrijski dizajn nečega što bi mogli da nazovemo kamp vreća za jednu osobu.

Originalno ime ovog proizvoda je Cocoon -portabl viseće sklonište za slučaj nužde.

Ukoliko vas, recimo, zadesi kiša u šumi, a imate ovu stvarčicu sa sobom, dovoljno je samo da je otvorite, zakačite za drvo i uvučete se unutra. Bez pardona ostaćete potpuno suvi.

Osim što održava toplotu, dizajn ove, nazovimo je, vreće, nalik je psihodeličnom ptičijem gnezdu, te se pitamo kakva bi bila reakcija šumara, koji bi naleteo na grupu ljudi ovako pokačene po drveću?!

Kez, još uvek, ne možemo da skinemo sa lica :)

That's just what we decided to do at our church this weekend. We are going to be taking clothes donations at the church through the month of November. As space fills up, we will be taking the clothes to our Association's Clothes Closet to benefit the less fortunate in our area. The closest mission is about an hour drive away from the church and wouldn't benefit many of our local citizens.

This is an easy thing to coordinate, all you need is a few willing participants and some outgrown, maybe out of style, slightly worn clothes. Our association's clothes closet has also asked that we request blankets as they are a much need commodity during these cold winter months. We are all going through our closets, attics, and storage buildings at this time of the year to find our winter clothes...now is the perfect time to start up your very own clothes drive. If starting your own clothes drive sounds like too much work, please consider taking your own winter clothes to a local mission or safe house. If you're like the typical American, you throw away 67.9 pounds of used clothing and rags each year. These nonprofit organizations will make sure your clothes go to benefit someone in need this winter.

Do your part to help someone in need stay warm this winter!

Visit these websites for online organizations who need your used clothing.

American Red Cross

GoodWill

One Warm Coat

The Women's Alliance

Dress for Sucess

Brides Against Breast Cancer