That included Natalia Antelava, Peter Murtaugh, Bill McKenna and Daniel Nasaw major investigative report for the BBC on the continued persecution of LGBTs in Iraq. BBC's continued assault which makes it very different from the CBS Evening News, ABC World News and NBC Nightly News which can't be bothered with the story. In addition, the BBC also filed the following reports:
And the reporting on this crisis didn't start last week. The BBC has seriously covered this issue for some time.
[Screen snap above, Ali al-Dagbah, Nouri's spokesperson, being interviewed by Natalia Antelava about the persecution of Iraq's LGBT community.]
And even after the BBC coverage this week, the American networks didn't suddenly gain interest in the topic. They made no effort to broadcast any of the reporting.
Natalia Antelava: The situation in Iraq he says is
only getting worse and without the support of international
organizations, they can't find the way out of the country. They appear
regularly without a warning. Each neighborhood gets its own hit list
with names and addresses of local residents who are believed to be
gay. Each time, it drives the already hidden gay community here
further underground and further into panic. Each time, one of the gays
told me, it signals the beginning of a new witch hunt. Radical milita
groups are believed to be behind this hit list. Although officially
they've been disbanded, militias still pose the greatest threat to
homosexuals. But those we spoke to say that they're just as fearful of
countless police and military checkpoints that are supposed to be
making Baghdad safe. This checkpoint is manned by the Interior
Ministry troops. But in Iraq, one's uniform never tells you the full
story. In this country, you can be a police man by day, a militia man
by night. These blurred lines and mixed allegiances have made it easy
for the government to blame militia groups for the killings of gays.
But we've discovered evidence that directly links the police with
attacks on gays in Iraq. Qais is gay and a former police man. He told
me he had been ordered to go after homosexuals. He couldn't refuse and
so he quit his job.
Qais:
In 2006, 2007 and 2008, we were busy fighting terrorsm. We didn't pay
attention to gays. On top of it, the Iraqi government had to respect
the rule of law when the Americans and the British were here. But
now? They have a lot of free time and the police are going after gays.
Natalia Antelava: Have you ever been called to arrest gays or kill gays or go after gays in any way?
Qais:
Yes, twice. We had to arrest this guy. He was having an argument with
someone. Once they arrested him, they accused him of being gay. We
were told to send him to another town where he was wanted for being
gay. We sent him to that town and he disappeared. His family came to
ask about him and we sent them to another town where they could not
find him. Then they got a death certificate from the police but they
never got the body.
Natalia
Antelava: With so much secrecy, fear and loathing, it's difficult to
establish the exact level of the government's involvement in the
persecution. But 17 gay men interviewed for this investigation said
they believed they were being singled out and hunted by the state. All
see the police as a major threat. All have recently had friends or
boyfriends killed. All said arrests were still happening. Until
recently, Ghaith worked a a police station. One day, he came to work
to find his boyfriend in a pre-trial detention cell.
The BBC could broadcast that but not the American networks.
You may remember when ABC pulled their staff out of Iraq -- December 2008 -- they insisted that they would use the BBC, that BBC reports would round out their Iraq coverage. Yet when the BBC provided an investigative report from Iraq, ABC played dumb.
The persecution of Iraq's LGBT community is a real story, it's a tragic story.
Yet last week, the American media was more concerned with attempting to convince Americans that Barack had a strong foreign policy.
Oh.
Suddenly the American media silence on the tragedies in Iraq makes sense.
