The Iraqi Parliament adopted a new law on Saturday April 27, 2024 to criminalize homosexuality and transgender people. Anyone involved in homosexual relations now faces up to 15 years in prison.
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The law against prostitution now also targets homosexuality. Iraqi parliament amended 1988 law to toughen measures against community LGBTQI+ who already lives hidden.
The adopted amendments therefore provide for a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years for homosexual relations. The first version planned to sentence them to the death penalty. A sentence of seven years’ imprisonment is also incurred for any promotion of homosexuality.
The text also prohibits any gender change operation, condemning the transgender person as well as the surgeon to a sentence of 1 to 3 years in prison.
L’American NGO Human Rights Watch had called on the Iraqi government in 2023 to remove this proposed amendments denouncing an attack on human rights against a community already victims of discrimination. Iraqi society rejects homosexuality, and the country’s small LGBT+ community is the frequent target of “ kidnappings, rapes, torture and assassinations » from armed groups enjoying “ of impunity », already noted the NGO in a report in 2022.
The MP behind the text defended it, arguing that it was about protecting Iraqi society and its values, rejecting any American or European interference in these internal decisions in Iraq.
Iraq used the 1969 penal code to condemn LGBT+ people, relying on an article providing “ life imprisonment or several years of imprisonment » for sodomy.
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