If you weren’t aware of it already, homosexuality is forbidden in the Koran, so to call someone a homosexual is among the worst form of insult and degradation. For that reason, our military has found it to be a useful tool (“the interrogators told him that his mother and sisters were prostitutes, forced him to wear a bra, forced him to wear a thong on his head, told him he was homosexual and said other inmates knew it”) for abusing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraqi prisons.
Now comes word of a program running on Kurdish television that features the confessions of Sheik Zana, a terrorist whose tactics are being used to discourage terrorist recruiting. The graphic films not only include the beheading of children, but also plenty of homosexual activity, which those Iraqis interviewed (“The homosexual part – that’s the worst thing.”) view as worse than the beheadings.
Some argue that those in the videos were coerced into homosexual acts and confessions since it’s against the Koran’s teachings (like there’s a ray of hope that these people wouldn’t naturally be that way!). It’s an enlightening look at how homosexuality is perceived in the Middle East — an abomination in any form. Quite a depressing piece.
Sordid Images on TV Repel the Kurds, but They Raise Some Skepticism, Too [ny times]
