Amir Ashour is a human rights defender with ten years of experience working with Iraqi and international organisations. He is the founder and Executive Director of IraQueer, Iraq’s first and only LGBT+ human rights organisation, and also holds a master’s degree in human rights from Columbia University. Amir was an honouree at the QX Gay Gala in Sweden and has been nominated for several other awards including the Raoul Wallenberg Academy Prize and The David Kato Voice and Vision Award.
Amir founded IraQueer in March 2015 as a safe space and advocacy group for the rights of the LGBT+ community. Now four years old, the organisation has six main members, and a network of over 600 Iraqi LGBT+ people, the majority of whom still live in or around Iraq. Through providing informational resources and direct services, IraQueer seeks to empower Iraqi LGBT+individuals and advocate for an Iraq and Kurdistan Region where LGBT+ individuals are recognised, protected, and have equal rights to every other citizen in the country.
GiveOut is proud to support IraQueer to continue its vital work in the Iraq and Kurdistan Region as one of our first grant partners.
GiveOut’s Callum Jackson and Lee Dibben interviewed Amir on his journey into activism and work with IraQueer.
What is your role with IraQueer?
My role in the LGBT+ movement is to use my privilege to create more spaces for other queer people in Iraq and elsewhere. I am the Executive Director of IraQueer, Iraq’s first and only LGBT+ led organisation. IraQueer was established four years ago as a platform to share information for and about queer Iraqis.
IraQueer quickly evolved into an LGBT+ organisation that focuses on three key areas: education, advocacy, and direct services. Firstly, through education we seek to raise awareness amongst and about LGBT+ Iraqis, and give training and workshops to relevant stakeholders to advance the LGBT+ movement. Secondly, in our advocacy work we engage with states and the United Nations to push for legal reforms and protections for LGBT+ people. And thirdly, we provide direct services to respond to urgent needs including safe housing, support for asylum seekers, medical services and legal advice.
What are some of the greatest challenges that the LGBT+ community faces in Iraq?
There is a lack of safe space to be a community, so it’s very isolating. Many of those who reach out to us want to be part of a queer community and have a space to gather and just ‘be queer’, but we don’t have that. There is also so much misinformation out there about what it means to be queer, but because there is no community, it is impossible to challenge those norms.
‘Experts’ in the media such as doctors contribute to the myth that being gay is a mental illness. They may be ignorant or deliberately misleading, but either way that’s problematic because it is not challenged or fact-checked by the media. It’s not only one channel, it’s all of them. While there are some online media outlets that try to counter this or fact-check, they are limited in what they can do because they have larger commercial goals. There are also some individual journalists who want to provide accurate information about LGBT+ people, but it’s not common.
A climate of hostility towards LGBT+ people in Iraq places individuals at risk of discrimination, extreme violence, torture and murder if they are perceived as having a minority sexual orientation or gender identity. In March 2019, IraQueer presented a submission on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to the United Nations Human Rights Council, co-sponsored by MADRE and OutRight Action International. This condemned the “state-sanctioned culture of anti-LGBT discrimination” in Iraq and estimated that 98% of LGBT Iraqis have faced verbal and/or physical violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. This violence is often directed at gender nonconforming individuals, placing Iraq’s trans community at particular risk.
You also work with the trans community. What is the situation like for them?
People don’t know the differences between trans and gay. They think all males who are feminine are trans. The trans community within the LGBT+ community is very active, but the situation for trans people is even worse. The violence that trans people face specifically is life-threatening, especially if they undergo hormone therapy – which is illegal in Iraq. Many travel to Iran to undergo surgery or HRT, but then returning to Iraq without documentation is difficult or impossible.
If they start expressing their gender more visibly, they are more vulnerable. In the best case scenarios they are harassed, in the worst they are raped or killed. The vast majority have no employment opportunities, and those who do experience harassment from their bosses, who ask for sexual services. Many work in ‘prostitution’, a word which I use deliberately because it is not a choice for them – it is not ‘sex work’. Anyone who lets go of their privileges, particularly of being a man, really risks losing their place in the home.
And what impact does the political situation in Iraq have on this?
Since 2006, there have been records reporting murder campaigns targeting LGBT+ people by militias, and now these militias are official partners of the government in fighting ISIS. Rule of law doesn’t apply in the sphere of honour killings and the murder of LGBT+ people. The groups that oppose LGBT+ people are often ‘fundamentally religious’, but my mom asks about my boyfriend every time I speak to her and she is a decedent of the Prophet – you can’t get more religious than that!
Due to the continuing conflict in Iraq, militia violence, and the weakening of government institutions since 2003, there has been little support for LGBT+ people. This has been compounded by partnerships between the Iraqi government and militias since 2014 to fight the Islamic State, which IraQueer argues has led to government complicity in the killing of LGBT+ people. Over the past decade, a number of organised murder campaigns targeting people based on their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity have been documented by IraQueer, with activists taking significant personal risks to record such information. This data compiled by IraQueer indicate that between 2015 and 2018, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was responsible for 10% of crimes against LGBT+ people, while government and authorities and affiliated armed groups are responsible for 53% of crimes and violations against LGBT+ people. Due to this, many LGBT+ individuals have been forced to flee Iraq as political refugees. Amir was one of these.
You left Iraq in October 2014 as a political refugee. How has that shaped your activism?
Leaving Iraq was not a decision. I was detained a couple of times, and the second time was by the Kurdish Prime Minister’s son’s special police force. I left with the idea that I would go back and planned to talk to colleagues in the USA about how to return. I met with several governments and four or five months later they all said they could not provide full protection, so I stayed in Sweden, where I was at the time. I believe that having the experience of being a refugee has shaped me and made me a better person, but it shouldn’t affect the way people treat me. We all have the responsibility to work together on human rights, whether it’s as donors, activists, funders, or anything else.
As the Executive Director of IraQueer, you take on a lot of this responsibility. How do you balance the demands of your activism with your own wellbeing?
In terms of coping, sometimes you just can’t cope and so the only way to do it is to simply do it. I’m really passionate about the work. Recently, I’ve become better at taking time off and not responding. Separating social media and official email has helped. It’s so important to filter, not because you don’t care, but because both organisational resources and personal resources are scarce. You have to remain focused.
Thank you for taking the time to share your journey and knowledge with us, Amir. Do you have any final thoughts or hopes for the future?
I try to channel the anger I have about what I experienced in Iraq into my work. One day, I will return to Iraq – despite the trauma and difficulty – because I want to change things in politics and law from the inside. I am very passionate about going back and hopefully helping to make it a place where those who violated our rights don’t have space to operate.