UN Security Council meets over Daesh attacks on gays

ISIS members have executed at least 30 LGBT people, Jessica Stern, executive director of the worldwide Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, reported at Monday’s meeting.

Gay Syrian refugee Subhi Nahas (L) stands with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (R) as they speak to the media at the United Nations headquarters in New York “At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheered jubilantly as at a wedding. This was to be my fate”.

Refugees fleeing persecution from ISIS have told the UN Security Council of the extreme violence directed towards LGBT men and women. “In July, a gay activist was raped in his own home and my friends report that attacks against LGBT people are escalating by two vigilante militant groups who are posting banners calling to “Kill gay people” in Ankara and Istanbul”. “I bear a scar on my chin as a token of his rage”, the refugee added. He nevertheless said the U.S., Turkey and other allies should take part in what he described as a “unified effort” against the Sunni extremist group.

“We’re getting this issue into the DNA of the United Nations”, Power explained.

Stern told reporters after the briefing that the Islamic State has executed at least 30 men accused of sodomy.

He explained that the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group (also known as Isis, Isil or Daesh) targeted anyone suspected of being gay.

Stern told the security council that courts established by ISIL in Iraq and Syria claim to have punished sodomy with stoning, firing squads and beheadings, and by pushing men from tall buildings.

“Today, we take a small but important step in assuming that work”.

The UN Security Council on Monday heard testimony from Syrian and Iraqi gays detailing their terror-filled lives under the “Islamic State”(IS) marking the first council meeting dedicated to LGBT rights. “In highlighting acts of horrific brutality that these individuals have endured, today’s discussion challenged the global community to develop better and more effective protections for LGBT persons”, Price said. It was the first such Security Council meeting held in the UN’s history.

The forum was open to all UN members states, but Security Council members Angola and Chad did not participate. Nahas said Khalil later called him from inside Turkey and he believed “it was only a matter of time before I would be found and killed“.

The UN cultural agency called the destruction of the Temple of Baalshamin an “immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity”.

“While the targeting of LGBT individuals in the region appears to have worsened as ISIL’s power has grown, such violence and hatred existed well before the group’s dramatic rise, and that violence and hatred extends far beyond ISIL’s membership”, Power said, using the Obama administration’s preferred name for the Islamic State group.