LGBTQ communities facing new repression in Middle East

Iraq wants to criminalize homosexuality, Saudi Arabia has targeted rainbow flags, and Egypt insists on a gender binary. Activists say new threats to LGBTQ communities are based on wrong ideas about tradition.Most of the people around him don't know he identifies as queer, the 20-year-old Iraqi student told DW. But life in his comparatively conservative southern city of Najaf is dangerous for him anyway.

"Once I wore a pink shirt and I was harassed, just because of the color," said Haiden, whose full name cannot be published for his safety. "Sometimes people are harassed and even killed just because they don't look like everyone else."

And, he said, things are getting worse for LGBTQ communities in Iraq. "We're already exposed to all kinds of harassment and attacked on a daily basis," he said. "And that's even before this law to criminalize homosexuality has been enacted."

'Severe penalties'

In July, Iraq's government announced that it was planning a law prohibiting homosexuality. Iraq is one of three Arab-majority countries in the Middle East that doesn't explicitly criminalize same-sex relationships. The others are Jordan and Bahrain.

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