The Iraqi parliament is studying a law that would punish homosexual relations with life imprisonment or even the death penalty. The project is considered dangerous by NGOs and members of the LGBTQIAPN+ community, victims of attacks carried out with complete impunity.
The country, which has no legislation protecting homosexuals, condemns the LGBTQIAPN+ population based on the 1969 penal code that provides for “life imprisonment or several years imprisonment” for sodomy.
The small Iraqi LGBTQIAP+ community is the target of frequent “kidnappings, rapes, torture and murders” by armed groups that mock “impunity”, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the cases in a report published in 2022.
MPs have returned to an amendment to the 1988 anti-prostitution law proposed by a relative majority in parliament, where Islamist parties carry weight.
The text, seen in the first instance last week, promotes “the death penalty or life imprisonment” for anyone who “maintains a homosexual relationship”. “Incitement to homosexuality” is punishable by “at least seven years in prison”. The AFP had access to the second document in question.
Source: Maxima
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