Amendments to anti-prostitution law also enable courts to sentence trans people to three years in prison

Amendments to anti-prostitution law also enable courts to sentence trans people to three years in prison

Iraq’s parliament has passed a bill making same-sex relations punishable by up to 15 years in prison, in a move condemned as an “attack on human rights”.

Transgender people will also be sentenced to three years in jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 out of 329 lawmakers on Saturday.

A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people to between 10 and 15 years in prison, according to the document seen by AFP, in a country where gay and transgender people already face frequent attacks and discrimination.

They also set a minimum seven-year prison term for “promoting” same-sex relations and a sentence ranging from one to three years for men who “intentionally” act like women.

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    13•14 days ago

    Queers? I don’t know. Women? Because I do know.

    Until the 1990s, Iraqi women played an active role in the political and economic development of Iraq.[121] In 1969, the Ba’ath Party established the General Federation of Iraqi Women, which offered many social programs to women, implementing legal reforms advancing women’s status under the law and lobbying for changes to the personal status code.[121] In 1986, Iraq became one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.[121]

    During the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam Hussein urged women to fill men’s places in schools, universities, hospitals, factories, the army, and the police. However, women’s employment subsequently decreased as they were encouraged to make way for returning soldiers in the late 1980s and the 1990s.[122] In general in cases of war, as Nadje Sadig Al-Ali, author of Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present, argues, "women carried the conflicting double burden of being the main motors of the state bureaucracy and the public sector, the main breadwinners and heads of households but also the mothers of ‘future soldiers.’[123]: 168  In the years following the 1991 Gulf War, many of the positive steps that had been taken to advance women’s and girls’ status in Iraqi society were reversed due to a combination of legal, economic, and political factors.[121] As the economy constricted due to sanctions, women were pushed into more traditional roles.[121] Moreover, Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to maintain legitimacy with conservative Islamic fundamentalists, brought in anti-woman legislation, such as the 1990 presidential decree granting immunity to men who had committed honour crimes.[123]: 202  However, despite Saddam’s appeals to the anti-women elements of Iraqi society, according to local NGOs, they concluded that “women were treated better during the Saddam Hussein era and their rights were more respected than they are now.”[124]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Iraq

    The Criminal Code of 1969, enacted by the Ba’athist party, only criminalized sexual behavior in cases of adultery, incest, rape, prostitution, public acts, or cases involving fraud or someone unable to give consent due to age or mental defect. Homosexuality per se was not a crime, but could be justification for government discrimination and harassment under laws designed to protect national security and public morality.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iraq

    So I don’t know for sure if queer people’s lives would have been better, but at least they wouldn’t have been automatic criminals.

    See above: re Satayana.

      • Flying SquidMEnglish
        2•13 days ago

        Yes, I quoted that part. It came after the part I bolded that said “In the years following the 1991 Gulf War,” which makes me think you didn’t actually read much of it.

        The 1991 Gulf War was when the U.S. invaded Iraq the first time. It was, again, America’s fault.

          • Flying SquidMEnglish
            3•13 days ago

            1990? You mean when America started threatening to Invade and Saddam sought the aid of the fundamentalists to stay in power, going against his own party?

            Yes, I agree, Saddam was a terrible dictator.

            That doesn’t change the fact that homosexuality was legal when he was in charge and illegal now.

              • Flying SquidMEnglish
                2•13 days ago

                And I re-iterate my previous point that it wouldn’t have happened anyway if America hadn’t stuck its nose in.

                Saddam didn’t reach out to the Islamists while at war with Iran. He certainly could have.