The emo killings in Iraq were a string of homicides that were part of a campaign against Iraqi teenage boys who dressed in an
emo style carried out by terrorists as an attack on Western culture. Between 6 and 70 young men were kidnapped, tortured and murdered in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
and Iraq during March 2012.
In September 2012,
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
reported that gay men in Baghdad said the killings had not abated.
Background
The emo subculture gained popularity among Iraqi teens in 2011. Earlier, it had become popular in other Arab countries. Emo, an offshoot of
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
music, is associated in most of the world with teen
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
and
alienation, but in the Arab world is also strongly associated with
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
. In 2009,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
's religious police arrested 10 emo women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop, and in 2008, conservative Egyptians criticized emo fashion-followers in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
for being "disciples of Satan and homosexuals." Homosexuality is not illegal in Iraq but it is taboo, and many
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
(lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) people in Iraq are discriminated against, abused or murdered. Activists say anti-gay harassment has increased since the
invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...
and subsequent
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
, with gay Iraqis being bullied and harassed by security forces, and beaten and killed by reactionary Islamist paramilitary groups in heavily
Shiite areas of Baghdad since at least 2006.
In February 2012, the Baghdad
Morality Police published a statement on the Iraqi Interior Ministry website criticizing emo teens for wearing "strange, tight clothes with pictures of skulls on them," and "rings in their noses and tongues." The statement condemned emo as
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
ic, and quoted Colonel
Mushtaq Taleb al-Mahemdawi as saying the Morality Police had been given official approval by the Interior Ministry "to eliminate
he phenomenon
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
as soon as possible since it's detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger." ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reported that in the weeks following, anti-emo flyers threatening death "unless gay men cut their hair, stopped wearing the clothing of devil worshippers and stopped listening to metal, emo and rap music", began appearing in neighbourhoods across Baghdad.
Killings
Interior Ministry
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
security officers say the number of dead is six. However, the
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
news agency reported that hospital and security officials put the number at 14 or more, and
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
groups such as the
BRussells Tribunal
The B''Russell''s Tribunal refers both to a series of hearings taking place in Brussels, April 14–17, 2004, as part of the World Tribunal on Iraq, and to the group of people who organised these hearings.
Claim of assassination campaign against ...
said that the body count could be as high as 100. The
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
reported that an unnamed Interior Ministry official put the number at 58, and said all but one were male. According to the BBC, the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
puts the number of dead at at least 12, but believes the real number is much higher.
The dead were found in dumpsters, after having been beaten to death with cement blocks
in a practice known as "death by blocking" or "''mawt al-blokkah''".
A person who told the
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
-based newspaper ''
Al Akhbar'' that he had escaped an attack said that, "first they throw concrete blocks at the boy's arms, then at his legs, then the final blow is to his head, and if he is not dead then, they start all over again."
Responsibility for the murders
International human rights groups have called on Iraqi authorities to investigate the killings, saying they are the work of paramilitary groups and the police,
including groups such as the
Mahdi Army
The Peace Companies ( ar, سرايا السلام, or Saraya al Salam) are an Iraqi armed group linked to Iraq's Shia community. They are a 2014 revival of the Mahdi Army ( ''Jaysh al-Mahdī'') that was created by the Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada a ...
, created in 2003 by popular
Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.
Iraqi commentators and American professor of Middle Eastern history
Mark Levine have speculated that deploying paramilitary groups against emo kids serves Iraqi authorities' interests by keeping the groups occupied, and deflecting their anger and unhappiness from other possible targets in chaotic post-war Iraq.
Iraqi television network
Al Sumaria reported that Sadr denied responsibility for the deaths, calling the emo teens fools and unnatural but saying they should be dealt with through legal means.
Following coverage of the murders, Iraqi officials denied there is any campaign to kill gay or emo teenagers, and said the story has been made up to serve anti-religious, anti-government agendas. They say emo teens can dress as they please, and that the government will protect them.
In September 2012, the BBC interviewed 17 gay men and former policemen in Baghdad, all of whom had friends or boyfriends killed, and reported that all blamed the Iraqi Interior Ministry for inciting the murders, and said arrests and killings are still ongoing.
Aftermath
In May 2012 as a result of the emo killings, according to the
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Dutch government "expanded" its asylum policy towards LGBT Iraqis.
The
U.S. State department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
's 2013
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are annual publications on the human rights conditions in countries and regions outside the United States, mandated by U.S. law to be submitted annually by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
of ...
for Iraq reported that in 2013, Iraq's
Council of Ministers
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
established an inter-ministerial committee that issued a statement saying LGBT people are "no different" from others, and that established a
charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
to describe the baseline protection owed to them.
Context
Israeli intelligence analyst Daniel Brode claims the murders are part of an overall shift inside the Iraqi Shiite-Arab population towards becoming "more religious, more conservative and more assertive," with the goal of consolidating its own power by creating a "fundamentalist Shiite government."
Before the
2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
, sexual minorities there enjoyed a fair amount of freedom.
But the invasion brought to power the conservative
Islamic Dawa Party and
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
says that since 2004, hundreds of Iraqi gay men have been killed. The campaign has been said to be led by the
Mahdi Army
The Peace Companies ( ar, سرايا السلام, or Saraya al Salam) are an Iraqi armed group linked to Iraq's Shia community. They are a 2014 revival of the Mahdi Army ( ''Jaysh al-Mahdī'') that was created by the Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada a ...
, with Iraqi security forces said to have "colluded and joined in the killing." Witnesses told Human Rights Watch the killers break into houses and pick up people in the street, interrogating them to extract the names of other victims, and then kill them and mutilate their bodies.
By 2007, according to the London-based human rights organization
Iraqi LGBT, Iraqi political and religious organizations had launched an organised, coordinated campaign to hunt, arrest, torture and kill everyone they perceived as gay. Iraqi LGBT says the Iraqi government forces gay people to give names and addresses of other gays, then arrests them and hands them over to paramilitary groups to be murdered.
In ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper, American
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
activist
Scott Long described Iraq as "a devastated society with a broken political process and a fractured public" and said "it's not just wrong, it's counterproductive to call these murders "gay killings."" He called on Iraq to begin a debate about difference, saying "Iraqis need to discuss why the horrors of the last four decades have made otherness seem intolerable."
See also
*
Discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
*
LGBT activism in Iraq
Iraqi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) activism refers to any work done to advance the state of LGBT peoples in political, cultural, or home safety. The Iraq government has maintained an anti-LGBT stance since gaining independence in 1932 ...
*
LGBT history in Iraq
In Iraq, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) individuals are subject to widespread discrimination. Openly gay men are not permitted to serve in the military and same sex marriage or civil unions are illegal. LGBT People do not have any l ...
*
LGBT rights in Iraq
*
Subculture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
*
Violence against LGBT people
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people frequently experience violence directed toward their sexuality, gender identity, or gender expression. This violence may be enacted by the state, as in laws prescribing punishment for hom ...
References
{{Discrimination
2012 in Iraq
Emo
Violence against LGBT people
LGBT history in Iraq
LGBT rights in Iraq
Mass murder in 2012
Violence against men in Asia
2010s in Baghdad
2012 in LGBT history
Adolescence in Asia
Discrimination in Iraq
Incidents of violence against boys
Assassinations in Iraq