Newsweek encounters obstacles reporting on gays in Iraq

”Nobody wants to talk about gays in Iraq, much less who is killing them,” the article said.

After weeks of inquiries, the magazine set up a meeting with Nadir, who helps run one of the ”safe houses” foreign activists fund for Iraqi gays.

But the night before their meeting, Nadir was visited by the Mahdi militia, the armed wing of the organization led by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and Nadir then called off the meeting.

”That was only one of many problems reporting on gays in Iraq,” Newsweek said. ”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.”

Gay men the magazine did manage to talk to told stories of being thrown out of their homes and ”savagely attacked” by Shia extremists from the Badr Corps or members of the Mahdi Army.

Killing gays has become ”honorable” in Iraq, the report said.

”And raping them is OK because it isn’t considered a homosexual act — only being penetrated or providing oral sex is.”

The report concluded, ”Changing Iraq’s attitudes toward its gay minority may prove even harder than ending the war.”