Gay Afghanistan, After the Taliban. Homosexualy as Tradn

Contents:

• THE TALIBAN RAPED AND BEAT A GAY MAN KABUL AFTER TRICKG HIM TO A MEETG WH A PROMISE OF PE OM AFGHANISTAN, SAYS REPORT
• GAY UNR THE TALIBAN
• GAY AFGHANISTAN, AFTER THE TALIBAN. HOMOSEXUALY AS TRADN
• TALIBAN CUTS GAY MAN TO PIEC TO ‘SHOW WHAT THEY DO WH GAY PEOPLE’
• GAY AFGHANISTAN: HOMOEROTICISM AMONG KABUL'S WARRRS
• TALIBAN-NTROLLED AFGHANISTAN WILL ‘CSH GAY MEN TO ATH WH 10FT WALLS’, WARNS JUDGE
• ‘A VIRTUAL ATH SENTENCE’: GAY AFGHANS BRACE FOR UNCERTA FUTURE UNR TALIBAN

THE TALIBAN RAPED AND BEAT A GAY MAN KABUL AFTER TRICKG HIM TO A MEETG WH A PROMISE OF PE OM AFGHANISTAN, SAYS REPORT

(New York) – Lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) Afghans and people who do not nform to rigid genr norms Afghanistan have faced an creasgly sperate suatn and grave threats to their safety and liv unr the Taliban, Human Rights Watch and OutRight Actn Internatnal said a report released today. A Taliban judge told the German tabloid Bild shortly before the fall of Kabul, “For homosexuals, there n only be two punishments: eher stong, or he mt stand behd a wall that will fall down on him.

” A manual issued by the Taliban Mistry of Vice and Virtue 2020 stat that relig lears shall prohib same-sex relatns and that “strong allegatns” of homosexualy shall be referred to the mistry’s district manager for adjuditn and punishment. A gay man said that Taliban members taed him at a checkpot, beat him, and gang-raped him, tellg him, “From now on anytime we want to be able to fd you, we will. The parents returned to Hamid’s hoe, sayg they had heard mors that Hamid was gay, and feared their son might have been killed bee of their relatnship.

”There are mours that the Taliban are trickg gay men to meetg them by ntactg them on social media wh a promise of pe om Afghanistan. However, sce the Taliban takeover, most gay Afghans have gone to, a gay man, said: “We don’t hang out together any more the way we ed to.

GAY UNR THE TALIBAN

He is gay, a nvert to Christiany and a member of the Hazara ethnic mory – three groups that have been historilly persecuted by the Taliban. In public statements July, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexualy – stong or beg cshed unr a toppled wall.

“He was threateng to jump off a buildg bee he thought would be a ls paful way to die than gettg ught and behead by the Taliban as a gay man. “The Taliban is well known to have executed many LGBTQ people when was power and there have been reports of gay men beg murred sce took over Augt this year, ” said Aws Jubair, director of the Aman Project, a Turkey-based group that advot for the LGBTQ muny the Middle East.

The Taliban raped and beat a gay man after dupg him to meetg them, a report om ITV outlet said that Hanan, a psdonym given to protect his inty, had been speakg to a man on social media who promised to help him fd a safe way out of LGBTQ people have been sperately tryg to flee the untry followg the Taliban agreed to meet the man Kabul after speakg for three weeks onle, who unbeknownst to him were actually Taliban men. Insir recently spoke to men om Afghanistan's secret gay muny, who said they are livg through a "nightmare" and fear of their futur unr Taliban le. In July, German newspaper Bild reported that a Taliban judge vowed to sentence gay men to ath by stong or beg cshed by a ne-foot activists told Insir that gay men would be lured to their aths through social media even durg the prev ernments.

GAY AFGHANISTAN, AFTER THE TALIBAN. HOMOSEXUALY AS TRADN

"Social media was basilly ed by the ernment to create honey traps to ba gay and bisexual men, " LGBTQ activist Nemat Sadat told Insir. This was unr Ashraf Ghani and Hamid Karzai, " he Zaher, an Afghan thor and gay rights activist, told Insir that gay people would often vanish after meetg up wh men they met on social media, who turned out to be ernment officials warned that the Taliban were likely to e the same tactics.

”For the report, released Tuday night, the rearchers terviewed 60 lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer Afghans, most their 20s, om October to December of last year. A few weeks after Taliban forc overtook Afghanistan’s pal, Kabul, Augt, a 20-year-old gay man reported that Taliban members had taed him at a checkpot. “A cisgenr gay or bisexual male, who uld grow a beard, who n look like the Taliban, who uld wear their clothg, who uld drs like them … they won’t even be qutned, ” said Sadat, who told NBC News that he has spoken wh over 200 Afghans who have been targeted or tortured by the Taliban sce Augt.

TALIBAN CUTS GAY MAN TO PIEC TO ‘SHOW WHAT THEY DO WH GAY PEOPLE’

Two more siar stori about the recurrence of Pashtun homosexualy, om the New York Tim (Febary 2002) and Tim of London (January 2002), n be found the Afghanistan News & Reports 2002-04. From the wtern shor of ancient Moroc across thoands of sandy Islamic to the far eastern islands of Indonia, almost half the distance of our known world, homosexual behavr is pronounced anathema to the fahful. But simple and superst scrib of the fahs have wrten reams of florid, passnate and volnic vers that embrace an artificial dichotomy of homo-and-hetero sexual and emotnal orientatn.

Bis s natural occurrence our gen and nrons, another reason homosexual behavr and sire has not been stamped out by every nceivable type of secular cure and sacred persecutn is that homosexualy serv both relign and culture well. It is perhaps one of the great anthropologil paradox (if not hypocrisi) that the history and behavr of homosexualy has been rried down through fifteen centuri by genr-segregated Mlim cultur and, as well, by male Christian monastic nferatns.

GAY AFGHANISTAN: HOMOEROTICISM AMONG KABUL'S WARRRS

A thoughtful rear who engag cross-cultural studi will not get far before they disver what many wtern lbigay people already know about the digeno and hidn homosexual tradn practiced, lol varieti, by untls unmarried and married men Arab/Mlim untri. In the cultur, homosexual activy serv as a temporary (yet valid and important) proxy stage of growth between puberty and marriage.

(6) The great Mlim emphasis on fay life renrs homosexualy far ls threateng to Mlim societi than to Wtern on (Mlim men seekg formally to marry each other remas unimagable). In most morn Islamic ‘cultural’ (premaral) homosexual behavr there is a mute unrstandg that sex is mutually nsensual, temporary and that ’s a form of pannship, if not affectn, among peers.

TALIBAN-NTROLLED AFGHANISTAN WILL ‘CSH GAY MEN TO ATH WH 10FT WALLS’, WARNS JUDGE

Whether the activy is mutual or forceful, there is an almost universal attu the eastern cultur that such sexual dulgence is not ‘gay’, that is, ’s not sex or love between two men who intify as homosexuals. ) Rather, a llective mental shell game the meang of sex is re-amed: heterosexual men engage homosexual behavr which the younger guy is not a ‘fem’ but obedient and passive and the olr one is not a ‘butch queer’ but assertive and active. It stirs up, aga, trigug issu of homosexual inty vs homosexual behavr: do behavr fe inty or is inty separate om behavr–and how do behavr and inty terface wh sexual orientatn…?

The rult is that vlatns of ternatnal human rights, pecially for women and gays, are jtified by opprsive ernments g the ‘higher’ Koranic dictat. And perhaps bee the ethnic Phtuns who domate Kandahar are the most religly nservative of Afghanistan’s major ethnic groups, they have, by most acunts, a higher cince of homosexual relatns.

” Followg the mullah’s math, this suggts that between 18% and 45% of men here engage homosexual sex–signifintly higher than the 3% to 7% of Amerin men who, acrdg to studi, intify themselv as homosexual.

‘A VIRTUAL ATH SENTENCE’: GAY AFGHANS BRACE FOR UNCERTA FUTURE UNR TALIBAN

It’s not only relig thori who scribe homosexual sex as mon among the Mohammed Nasem Zafar, a profsor at Kandahar Medil College, timat that about 50% of the cy’s male rints have sex wh men or boys at some pot their liv. Richardson, the psychiatry profsor, says would be wrong to ll Afghan men homosexual, sce their cisn to have sex wh men is not a reflectn of what Wterners ll genr inty. Homosexualy is not unrstood as anythg natural or acceptable and the ia of mutual same-sex pleasure or romance is alien to the vast majory who have never enuntered such ias.

For some of the married-wh-kids men, ’s also possible that some of them are really gay and this tradnal nqut of younger guys serv their secret very well. But even here the gay man ns a risk sce the younger man is probably heterosexual and knows (after parg not wh his own peers) the rol and lims expected of both of them. Rather ’s a larger overview of the new ernment’s hoped-for attu toward legislatg human rights to a long opprsed populace–cludg gay and lbian cizens.

22 will disntue executns of people charged wh sodomy and will likely adopt a more tolerant policy on human rights for gays, acrdg to a spokperson for the Northern Alliance, the Afghan ary factn that fought agast the Taliban. Am said he uld not predict how the new terim ernment would addrs specific human rights issu, such as anti-gay persecutn, but said he was certa the ernment-sponsored ab of women and mori unr the Taliban ernment would be disntued. Bmberg said that while Afghanistan’s nservative, Islamic tradns would make unlikely that Karzai would openly embrace gay rights, he said the changg ndns brought about by the oter of the Taliban will enable Karzai to at least put an end to dranian practice such as summary executns of gays.