Iraq’s parliament passed a bill that criminalizes same-sex relationships with jail terms from 10 and 15 years, and will also see transgender people or “men who intentionally act like women” be sentenced with up to three years in jail.
The bill is actually amending the 1988 anti-prostitution law, a move being sold as needed to “help uphold religious values in the country.”
An earlier version of the bill was even more extreme, proposing capital punishment for those same-sex relationships.
Other punishable acts in the bill include:
- minimum seven-year prison term for “promoting” same-sex relations
- biological sex change based on personal desire and inclination
- doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery with up to three years in prison
Anti-LGBTQIA initiatives have been pushed in Iraq in the past years. For instance, in August 2023, Iraq’s official media regulator – Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) – ordered all media and social media companies operating in the Arab state not to use the term “homosexuality” and instead to say “sexual deviance,” and similarly not to use “gender”.
