ISIS, the Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility for executing at least 30 people for sodomy, the head of an international gay rights organization said Monday at the first-ever U.N. Security Council meeting spotlighting what organizers called the “barbaric treatment.”
Jessica Stern, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told the council that courts established by the militant group in Iraq and Syria claim to have punished sodomy with stoning, firing squads and beheadings and by pushing men from tall buildings.
“In addition to men perceived as gay, trans-identified people and lesbians are among those who have been raped and killed,” she added
Fear of the Islamic State group has fueled violence by other militias and “private actors” against LGBT individuals, she told the closed-door meeting.
Stern, whose remarks were released publicly, stressed that persecution of LGBT people in Iraq and Syria began long before the emergence of Islamic State militants, and “murder is only the most extreme form of violence.” and called for specific strategies to combat LGBT attacks, including U.N. action to relocate those most in need and bringing the gay community into broader human rights and humanitarian initiatives
The Islamic State group is now in control of about a third of Syria and Iraq
According to a report in June by the U.N. human rights chief, at least 76 countries retain laws used to criminalize and harass people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, including laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relationships among adults