Iraqi youth panicked by reports of killings

Alaa al-Marjani/AP - Iraqis who identify themselves as so-called Emos smoke a traditional "shisha" water pipe on Wednesday, as its smoke obscures their identity, in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.

By Alice Fordham
Published: March 11

BAGHDAD — Panic is spreading among young people in Iraq after reports by Iraqi media and rights groups that dozens of people have been threatened or killed in the past few weeks because they are suspected of being gay or because they dress in a distinctive, gothic style known as emo.

Lists threatening named people with death unless they change their attitude circulated anonymously late last week in Baghdad. Prominent clerics, as well as at least one police official, have condemned the emo — short for emotional — craze for its gloomy music and macabre look, which includes tight clothes and styled hair. The trend began in the 1980s in the West but has only recently become popular in the Arab world.

Some urban Iraqi teens and 20-somethings who had embraced the Western influences slowly permeating the country say they are cutting their hair and putting aside their fashionable clothes, abruptly reminded that Iraq remains both conservative and dangerous.

Police and medical officials deny that anyone has been killed for “being an emo,” but a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said Sunday that four men believed to be gay had been found dead in Baghdad in February, and the body of a young man was found in the city last week with a head injury caused by a large rock or brick.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/iraqi-youth-panicked-by-reports-of-killings/2012/03/11/gIQAW9pD6R_story.html