Talk:Gay rights in Iraq

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[edit] POV

The afd discussion mentions WP:POV issues with this article. Can someone give me an example? It sounds reasonably neutral to me. Jasmol 02:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• I personally see one point in this article, although it's more a case of WP:V than WP:NPOV. The "Opposition and Tolerance" section states: "Saddam's government often sent mixed signals about homosexuality in the 1990s. While it opposed efforts in the United Nations to address gay rights concerns on religious grounds, some reports have suggested that an active gay nightlife was tolerated by the government, including nightclubs and annual events with transgendered people, and that even homosexual prostitution was generally overlooked by the regime in the 1990's, at the most being something that incurred brief jail time and a small fine." These are quite important points, and they should be referenced, imo. Aecis ^praatpaal 01:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cases

The one part of this other-wise well written article is the lack of cases, examples. Unless I missed something, in criminal code it mentions laws that "could have" been used against LGBT Iraqis, but no statements that they have been. I really think that, unless there are examples, or even a quote SAYING there have been usage of these laws against LBGT Iraqis, the argument presented by the article is entirely speculative. If there is an example somewhere in the article that I missed, the sentence I have mentioned should be changed from speculative to factual. Not a big problem, just makes it appear weak. JG of Borg 16:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

I didn't believe this article had enough weight to support itsself and never would so that in brief is the reason I nominated it. I'd accept a "Gay rights in various countries" article before Gay rights in Iraq which only says "look at us" we are being discriminated against. Chooserr 23:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is certainly on the lightweight side, but a number of "Something in Somewhere" articles are pretty lightweight as well [1] [2] [3]. Given that this article's little content was certainly specific to Iraq, I'm not sure that grouping would be appropriate. --Bletch 00:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The reference to Ayatollah Sistani is extremely doubtful. Not only can I find no external source that is not a copy or quote of the original article which appeared on 365gay.com (and has since disappeared from that site as far as I can tell), I can find no evidence of such a fatwa on the English-language portion of www.sistani.org. Also, at least two Western commentors familiar with Sistani and earlier fatwas issued by him have strongly stated that the story does not pass the "smell test". (http://ginmar.livejournal.com/680814.html and http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1808775.php)