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Peter Tatchell: gay Iraqis fear for their livesVeteran human rights campaigner and Green Party parliamentary candidate Peter Tatchell talks to Claudia Tanner about the gruesome injustices facing gay Iraqis, and how he is in constant fear for his life because of his work.It’s Sunday morning when I interview Peter Tatchell, the British gay movement's most prominent campaigner. But there’s no day of rest for Peter, who has doggedly pursued campaigns for forty years on a bewildering range of issues from Aids, animal rights, discrimination in post-apartheid South Africa, to fighting to get Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe tried for human rights abuses. Death threatsPeter has been attacked by neo-Nazis in Moscow, beaten by Mugabe's bodyguards
and interrogated by the Stasi. The leading member of Outrage! tells me
that he receives regular hate mail from a combination of far right people,
including members of the British National Party, and increasingly from
Islamic fundamentalists. Pink IraqEarlier this month Peter lead a talk as part of Liverpool’s Homotopia
festival at the Unity Theatre, called ‘Pink Iraq, Mullahs and Death
Squads’, which was originally shown at Soho Theatre in London. Since
the fall of Saddam Hussein, he argues, gay Iraqis are facing death, persecution
and systematic targeting by armed Shiite militias taking advantage of
the chaos and lawlessness in post-invasion Iraq. BrutalityAlso speaking at the event was Ali Hili, a 33 year-old gay Iraqi exile
who fled the country following a grenade attack on his home. His childhood
friend, also homosexual, was found dead, having been burnt alive in his
car. Ali says, “My friend told me ‘Ali, if something happens
to me, I want you to tell the world’”. And so Ali founded
Iraqi LGBT three years ago in London to support other gays and lesbians
being victimised. He lists examples of the many death squad killings on
his website. These include: Helping gay Iraqis Two year’s ago, Ali’s LGBT group set up five safe houses
for gay Iraqis under threat and helps them seek refuge in neighbouring
countries. But sadly, three were closed down earlier this month due to
lack of funds. “This decision will break a lot of hearts,”
says Ali. “Over 30 gay residents now have to take their chances.
But we have no other choice. We don’t have the financial support.”
The cost of running one safe house for a month is about £900. Pushing for social changePeter’s campaigning work has earned him being voted sixth on a
list of ‘Heroes of our time’ by New Statesman readers last
year. But decades of campaigning have taken their toll. “It’s
a stressful life,” says Peter, who says he lives in constant fear
for his safety. Spending around 70 unpaid hours a week campaigning, Peter
lives frugally in a London council flat on an income of £8,000 a
year through his freelance journalism (he writes regularly for The Guardian's
Comment is Free website). “But the rewards are enormous, and far
outweigh the downside,” he says. To find out how to donate to Iraqi LGBT visit http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com Sorry Comments ClosedComment on this review: |
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