Iraq’s Parliament delayed a vote last week on a harsh anti-LGBTQ+ law that would have made same-sex activities punishable by death.
The bill, which aimed to change an anti-prostitution law, was second on the agenda during last Monday’s parliamentary session, according to Reuters. However, the vote was postponed due to time limits and disagreements over proposed changes.
In addition to enforcing the death penalty or life imprisonment for same-sex relationships, the bill would also enforce a minimum seven-year jail term for “promoting homosexuality,” which is not defined in the bill. It also specifically targets transgender women with up to three years in prison and fines for “imitating women,” as stated by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
While consensual homosexual activity is not explicitly illegal under current law in Iraq, vague “morality” clauses in the country’s penal code are often used to target LGBTQ+ individuals. A March 2022 report from HRW and Iraqi LGBTQ+ rights group IraQueer detailed widespread violence against LGBTQ+ individuals by police and other armed groups in the Muslim-majority nation that goes unpunished. Iraq was one of five Middle Eastern and North African countries included in a 2023 report examining how state actors and private individuals use social media and dating apps to entrap and extort LGBTQ+ individuals.
Last August, Iraq’s media regulator outlawed the term “homosexuality,” mandating traditional and social media platforms to replace it with “sexual deviance.”
The bill amending Iraq’s “Law on Combating Prostitution” was introduced last same month by independent Member of Parliament Raad Al-Maliki, who stated it was necessary to “preserve the entity of the Iraqi society from deviation and calls for ‘paraphilia’ [abnormal sexual impulses] that have invaded the world.”
“Iraq’s proposed anti-LGBT law would threaten the lives of Iraqis already facing a hostile environment for LGBT people,” Rasha Younes, senior LGBT rights researcher at HRW, said at the time. “Iraqi lawmakers are sending an appalling message to LGBT people that their speech is criminal and their lives are expendable.”
According to HRW, the proposed bill contradicts not only non-discrimination and privacy protections in the Iraqi constitution but also international human rights law.
As Reuters notes, the postponement of last Monday’s vote occurred as Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was set to meet with President Joe Biden in Washington. The meeting was expected to focus on increased U.S. investment in Iraq.
At the same time, diplomats from three Western countries informed Reuters they had urged Iraqi lawmakers not to approve the anti-LGBTQ+ bill. “It would be very difficult to justify working closely with such a state at home,” one senior diplomat said. “We were very, very direct: if this law is passed in its current form, it would have catastrophic consequences for our bilateral and business and trade relations.”
