While brave Ugandan human-rights activists like Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera stand up to officially and evangelically-sponsored death threats and “kill the gays” legislation, the United States is sending 100 special-operations forces to that nation — ostensibly to aid Ugandan officials’ battle against the barbaric Lord’s Resistance Army.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the deployment, but there is reason for concern about the impact of U.S. aid on Uganda’s sexual minorities. HRW’s own 2011 annual report for Uganda spotlights widespread abuses of human rights, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech.

The LRA is just one of countless brutal rebel groups around the world, and critics question why the United States would bother with Uganda. Fox News asked U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein this question; despite her foreign-affairs and national-security expertise, Feinstein couldn’t provide a coherent answer.

Even without the LRA, the human-rights situation in Uganda is discouraging. “Born-again” Christians are calling for police violence against religious minorities. Evangelicals are renewing pressure to enact a death penalty against LGBT Ugandans. Elections are routinely rigged. Dissidents are extrajudicially executed by police and paramilitary organizations. In addition to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, other proposed bills censor the media, violate international human-rights laws, and abuse foreign HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts.

(Read More)

Last month, journalist Rex Wockner profiles Scott Long, a long-time advocate for LGBT human rights who is now director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Division.

If activists sometimes wonder why human-rights workers are slow to report about feared crises, Long explains why: Filtering facts from rumor is difficult, especially in parts of the world where official media are unreliable or untrustworthy and where at-risk populations must remain in hiding.

Of the current Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, Long says: (Read More)

In the not too distant past, most Americans couldn’t tell a Pashtun from a cartoon, a Sunni from a Moonie or a Kurd from bean curd. Then came 9-11 and we learned our very survival depended on securing freedom for people we barely knew existed. Exorcising the region’ demons through democracy was so important, we were told, that America would pay for the effort in blood and bankruptcy.

Despite the bumbling and fumbling of the war effort, the bitter divisions in our country and the wheelbarrows of dough dumped in the desert, there was always the faint hope that a better Middle East might just emerge from the mess. And, whatever one thinks of the two wars, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were real villains who were vanquished.

The idea, of course, was that once these monsters were slain, they’d be replaced with the sane. But, the monsters have multiplied and Sasquatch has morphed into a bevy of Big Foots (or is it Big Feet?). It appears that for all of our sacrifice — and that of the secular Iraqi and Afghanistani people — the crazies are back in control. Or, at least fanatics have instilled enough fear that “mainstream” Iraqi and Afghanistani politicians are tripping over themselves to please and appease. (Read More)

From Doug Ireland of the Gay City News, April 30:

As the murder campaign targeting Iraqi gays intensifies, a leading Arabic television network last week revealed the use of a horrifying new form of lethal torture against Iraqi gay men – anti-gay Shiite death squads are sealing their anuses with a powerful glue, then inducing diarrhea, which leads to a painful and agonizing death. The use of this stomach-turning new torture was first reported by the Al Arabiya network, which is headquartered in the United Arab Emirates and was alerted to the story by a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights activist.

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told Al Arabiya that the torture substance “is an Iranian-manufactured glue that, if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile telephones in Iraq.”

Al Arabiya said its reporter confirmed the use of this anal torture by “visiting the Baghdad morgue in Bab-al-Moazaam in central Baghdad, where Neman Mohsen, the medical examiner, confirmed they have the bodies of seven homosexuals in the morgue. He said, ‘We were not able to identify the culprits, who dumped the bodies in front of the morgue and fled without being seen.’” A two-person team from Human Rights Watch (HRW) currently in Iraq to investigate persecution of LGBT people has also confirmed the use of this form of torture. In a widely-circulated email from Iraq, the head of HRW’s LGBT desk, Scott Long, said he and his colleague had gathered evidence which confirms the Al Arabiya report and that HRW would make its own detailed report after the organization’s two staffers return to the United States next week.

Yesterday, MSNBC’s World Blog posted additional information:

Iraq’ gay population is being targeted by militia groups in a wave of killings that has claimed the lives of up to 25 young men and boys in the past month.

“They know I am gay. I don’t know if I am going to be killed, this is up to God,” said Moyad, a 38-year-old Baghdad resident who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety.

Visibly frightened, he said that he has many friends who have been sadistically tortured, some even murdered. “They are sticking glue up their anuses; some hospitals refuse to treat them. Is it a war waged against homosexuals?” he asked.

Most of the attacks have happened in Baghdad’ Shia neighborhoods, and many believe that religious leaders have used Friday sermons in Sadr City as a platform to incite hatred and violence toward homosexuals. The bodies of three gay men were reported to have been found in Sadr City in April with pieces of paper bearing the word for “pervert” attached to them.

The language used by the perpetrators in Iraq is much the same as that used by Exodus International and its allies in March when they launched the current campaign of intimidation and violence against same-sex-attracted persons in Uganda:

Posters and leaflets have been distributed in the Baghdad neighborhoods of al-Shola, al-Hurya and Sadr City with orders to, “Cleanse Iraq from the crime of homosexuality.”

In Uganda, the campaign co-launched by Exodus International board member Don Schmierer vowed to “wipe out” homosexuality, while Exodus continues to promise U.S. antigay heterosexuals “freedom from homosexuality” — and, it logically follows, from homosexuals.

MSNBC continues:

Baghdad police didn’t respond to inquiries from NBC News about the attacks, but the surge in violence has gained attention by the international media.

In a letter to Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki in April, Amnesty International called for “urgent and concerted action” to stop the killings of men because of their sexual orientation.

Amnesty International expressed concern at the government’ failure to “publicly condemn the killings.” It urged the government to make sure that the killings are “promptly and effectively investigated, and to see that the perpetrators are brought to justice.” The letter also condemned statements from one senior police officer that,”appear to condone or even encourage the targeting of members of the gay community in Baghdad.” An Amnesty spokeswoman said there had not yet been a reply from Iraqi authorities.

The message of Exodus and NARTH, that homosexuality is a mental illness to be treated or eliminated, resonates well beyond U.S. borders and nations such as Uganda that are served by the Exodus Global Alliance. According to Towleroad:

English language newspaper The National, based in Abu Dhabi, reports on the recent executions of gay men in Iraq.

They interview a man they call Abu Muslim, who claims to be involved in the actual killings:

“We see this [homosexuality] as a serious illness in the community that has been spreading rapidly among the youth after it was brought in from the outside by American soldiers. These are not the habits of Iraq or our community and we must eliminate them…We had approval from the main Iraqi tribes here to liquidate those [men] copying the ways of women. Our aim is not to destabilise the security situation. Our aim is to help stabilise society…Although the Mahdi Army is today limited and in fact stalled, we cannot sit by with our arms crossed while these homosexuals flout the rules and ethics that must be followed under the Islamic religion. These homosexuals think that Iraq is changing and becoming a non-Muslim, liberal society but our tribal and religious customs allow us to punish them in the most severe way.”

Change is possible — social change, that is. But violent antigay religious leaders in Iraq, elevated and empowered by an incompetent U.S. occupation, are determined to use any means necessary to stop change.