LGBT rights in Iraq
LGBT rights in  
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|---|---|
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| Same-sex sexual activity legal? | Legal since 2003 (Republic of Iraq) |
| Military service | Male same-sex military service banned since 2007 (Republic of Iraq) |
| Family rights | |
| Recognition of relationships |
No recognition of same-sex couples (Republic of Iraq) |
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Restrictions:
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Same-sex marriage banned (Republic of Iraq) |
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) persons in Iraq face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.
Iraq was given a ban on homosexuality, defined in the penal code as sodomy, while under British rule.
The ban was initially maintained when Iraq achieved its Independence in 1932.
The Criminal Code of 1969, enacted by the Ba'athist party, only criminalized sexual behavior in cases of adultery, incest, rape, prostitution, public acts or cases involving fraud or someone unable to give consent due to age or mental defect. Homosexuality per se was not a crime, but could be justification for government discrimination and harassment under laws designed to protect national security and public morality.
In addition to the Criminal Code, the Ba'athist regime, especially under Saddam Hussein, would issue additional resolutions on specific topics. Sodomy was re-criminalized by a 1988 resolution, but only when it involved prostitution. [Combating Prostitution Law No. 8 of 1988]. After the war with Iran, Saddam Hussein felt that he needed to move away from his earlier image as an Arab secularist, in favor of being a champion of traditional Islamic values.
In the early 1990s, schools were required to teach traditional Islamic values, alcoholic beverages had to be removed from public and several nightclubs accused of harboring prostitutes were closed. All of these resolutions were part of a larger campaign to consolidate support among the socially conservative factions within Iraqi society.
It was during this same period that organized attacks on LGBT people began to increase.
In the United Nations, the Iraqi delegation cited religion at the time as their reasoning for opposing efforts to have the international body support gay rights, challenging the widely held view of Saddam as a secularist.
The practice of "honor killings" was legalized by the Iraqi government, and, in 1995, Saddam created a new paramilitary group that would publicly torture and execute LGBT people, as well as women who had sex outside of marriage.
In 2001, the IRCC Resolution 234 of 2001 was enacted that established the death penalty for adultery, being involved with prostitution, and anyone who, "Commits the crime of sodomy with a male or female or who violates the honor of a male or female without his or her consent and under the threat of arm or by force in a way that the life of the victim (male or female) is threatened."
When Coalition Provisional Authority chief executive Paul Bremer took control of Iraq in 2003 he issued a series of decrees that restored the Iraqi criminal code back to the Iraq penal code of 1968 (as revised in 1988).
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Wikipedia