A UNHCR Research paper on asylum seekers and sexual orientation in Scandinavia notes that in Iraq: “acts of discrimination, blackmailing, assault or persecution are committed by the police, judges or other government representatives themselves. As long as the state either instigates the persecution or condones it, a refugee claim can be established.”

Campaigns against gay or effeminate men have been met with indifference by the Iraqi state. In August 2009, the Human Rights Watch report, ‘They Want us Exterminated: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq’ confirmed that the Mahdi army and other militias had been involved in a widespread “gay massacre”. In 2012, other reports indicated that a new wave of anti-gay violence was beginning. IGLHRC indicates that threats and attacks are carried out against men who do not conform to traditional heterosexual male patterns of behaviour. IGLHRC also states that the government made no moves to stop the gay killings and that in 2012 the Interior Ministry reaffirmed that it would not investigate the ongoing campaign against effeminate men, or “emos”, a term that has become synonymous with “gay” in Iraq. Instead, the Interior Ministry declared it would take action against those attempting to highlight this issue. More details about the decisions recommended to the state and whether it ratified them in aftermath of the killings can be found here.

Furthermore, homosexuals are at risk of attacks and “honour killings” from their own families when they are seen as violating Islamic morals, as noted in point 8 and 330 of UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines, 2009. Brian Whitaker notes that, since the fall of Saddam, the lack of legal penalties for homosexuality has not meant the LGBTI community are safe from persecution. ‘The wave of “gay” killings was made possible by the breakdown of state control and the rise of local militias, some of them seeking to enforce their own interpretations of Islamic law. That resulted in people being killed for the most trivial of “sins” – among them barbers who gave customers “un-Islamic” haircuts.’

It is also worth noting that homosexuality is equally condemned in the Sunni Islamic society of Northern Iraq (also known as Iraqi Kurdistan) under the governance of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is subject to the same penal law as the rest of Iraq. This attitude can be seen in the imprisonment of the physician and journalist Adel Hussein for writing about homosexuality in a report, as well as in the backlash against the inclusion of the phrase ‘gender equality’ in a new law in 2010.

Homosexuality is a crime in all of Iraq’s immediate neighbours and is regularly persecuted all across the Middle East, meaning LGBTI refugees are in danger of renewed persecution if they do not seek asylum further afield.

A v. The State (Immigration Appeals Board) –  March 2012, a decision by the court of the appeal in Norway was “quashed by the Supreme Court” because no reason had be established for the Iraqi asylum seeker keeping his sexuality concealed. (Original case decision in Norwegian)

A v. Bundesamt fur Migration(BFM), 10th January 2012, D-6445/2009 (in German) –
A Kurdish Iraqi who was a victim of sexual abuse feared persecution by his clan (honour killing) as well as by the authorities. The court acknowledged these as objective reasons for asylum and ordered the court of first instance to grant the applicant asylum. It criticized the migration office’s assessment that he could seek protection in northern Iraq.