http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_rights_in_Iraq#_note-0 Until 2001 the Iraqi criminal code was silent about the topic of homosexuality. In the first few years of the Iraqi War, the only copy available (in English) of the Iraqi criminal code is from 1988. However, the Iraqi Special Tribunal has recently published a good English translation of the 1969 Iraqi Criminal Code and the 1972 Civil Code. The following provisions in the criminal code appear to be applicable, although translations from Arabic into English can be tricky.
* Paragraph 111 - He who discovers his wife, one of his female relatives committing adultery or a male relative engaged in sodomy and kills, wounds or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty.[citation needed](--- this is not listed in the criminal code ---)
On February 5th, 2005 the IRIN issued a reported titled "Iraq: Male homosexuality still a taboo." The article stated, among other things that honor killings by Iraqis against a gay family member are common and given some legal protection. The article also stated that the 2001 amendment to the criminal code stipulating the death penalty for homosexuality "has not been changed", even through Paul Bremer clearly ordered the criminal code to go back to its original 1969 edition.[2]
The Iraqi Committee For Personal Privacy and Freedom has an online website that does supports some gay rights issues but it is unclear how big this new Committee might be. A similar orgaization called the Iraqi Scientific Humanitarian Committee also exists online and claims to be an Iraqi gay rights organization.
On August 5th 2005 the IRIN issued a report on the rise of male teenage prostitution in Iraq, and the strong moral opposition to homosexuality in general.[4] The report seems to suggest that even absent a specific criminal prohibition the parents or relatives of a Iraqi homosexual may try to kill them.
Since 2005 there have been reports that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's "Badr Corps" has been involved in death march campaigns against LGBT Iraqis citizens, and that they have gotten support for such polices by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani[6]
Saddam regime: opposition and tolerance
Reports about the treatment of Iraqi homosexuals during the rule of the Ba'athist Party oftentimes seem to conflict with each other, and what little information does exist is from the 1990s.
In the 1990s the Iraqi representatives to the United Nations opposed having the body address gay rights concerns or give consultative status to international gay rights organizations, on religious grounds. Some recent reports from the United Nations have said that Saddam Iraqi security forces would often harass and abuse Iraqi gays, and that honor killings of gay family memberes were tolerated, and still are.
Yet, some reports from Iraqis have suggested that an active gay nightlife was tolerated by the Ba'athist government, including nightclubs and annual events with transgendered people, and that even homosexual prostitution was generally overlooked by the regime in the 1990s, at the most being something that incurred brief jail time and a small fine.[9]