Iraq delays vote on “kill the gays” bill as prime minister meets with Joe Biden | LGBTQNation

This blog originally appeared at LGBTQ NATION.

One expert warned that if the bill were to pass, it would have a “catastrophic” impact on Iraq’s relations with the West.

Last week, Iraq’s Parliament deferred a scheduled vote on a harsh anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that could have led to the death penalty for same-sex acts. The proposed bill, intended as an amendment to an existing anti-prostitution law, was slated as the second item on the agenda during last Monday’s parliamentary session, as reported by Reuters. However, due to time constraints and disagreements over amendments, the vote was postponed, as indicated by two sources.

Beyond prescribing the death penalty or life imprisonment for same-sex relations, the bill also stipulates a minimum seven-year prison term for “promoting homosexuality,” a term left undefined in the legislation. Furthermore, it specifically targets transgender women, proposing up to three years in prison and fines for “imitating women,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

While consensual gay sex is not explicitly prohibited by current law in Iraq, vague “morality” clauses in the country’s penal code are often used to target LGBTQ+ individuals. A joint report by HRW and the Iraqi LGBTQ+ rights group IraQueer in March 2022 highlighted widespread violence against LGBTQ+ individuals by police and other armed groups in the predominantly Muslim nation, with perpetrators often going unpunished. Iraq was among five Middle Eastern and North African countries examined in a 2023 report, which explored how state actors and private individuals exploit social media and dating apps to entrap and extort LGBTQ+ individuals.

Last August, Iraq’s media regulator banned the term “homosexuality,” mandating that traditional and social media platforms replace it with “sexual deviance.”

The bill to amend Iraq’s “Law on Combatting Prostitution” was introduced in the same month by independent Member of Parliament Raad Al-Maliki. Al-Maliki argued that the legislation was necessary to “preserve the integrity of Iraqi society from deviance and the propagation of ‘paraphilia’ [abnormal sexual impulses] that have spread worldwide.”

Rasha Younes, senior LGBT rights researcher at HRW, expressed concern about the proposed anti-LGBT law, stating, “Iraq’s proposed anti-LGBT law would endanger the lives of Iraqis who already face a hostile environment for being LGBT. Iraqi lawmakers are sending a disturbing message to LGBT individuals that their speech is criminal and their lives are expendable.”

According to HRW, the proposed bill not only contradicts nondiscrimination and privacy protections enshrined in the Iraqi constitution but also violates international human rights law.

Reuters noted that the postponement of last Monday’s vote coincided with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s scheduled meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington. The meeting was reportedly aimed at discussing increased U.S. investment in Iraq.

Simultaneously, diplomats from three Western countries informed Reuters that they had urged Iraqi lawmakers not to pass the anti-LGBTQ+ bill. One senior diplomat remarked, “It would be very difficult to justify working closely with such a state at home. We were very, very direct: if this law is passed in its current form, it would have catastrophic consequences for our bilateral business, trade relations.”