Iraq to punish same-sex acts

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq’s parliament passed a bill on Saturday criminalizing same-sex relations, which will receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.”

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

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 engaging in same-sex relations to between 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the document seen by Agence France-Presse, in a country where gay and transgender people already face frequent attacks and discrimination.

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

“biological sex change based on personal desire and inclination” a crime and punishes transgender people and doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery with up to three years in prison.

Homosexuality is taboo in Iraq’s conservative society, however there had not previously been a law that explicitly punished same-sex relations.

Members of Iraq’s LGBTQ+ community have been prosecuted for sodomy or under vague morality and antiprostitution clauses in Iraq’s penal code. “Iraq has effectively codified in law the discrimination and violence members of the LGBTI community have been subjected to with absolute impunity for years,” said Amnesty International’s Iraq researcher Razaw Salihy.

“The amendments concerning LGBTI rights are a violation of fundamental human rights and put at risk Iraqis whose lives are already hounded daily,” Salihy added.

The amendments also ban organizations that “promote” homosexuality and punish “wife swapping” with a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years.