A new report from Human Rights Watch demands that the Iraqi government crack down on the executions of gay men in the country, saying that hundreds have been killed since 2004:

"Although the scope of the problem remains unclear, hundreds of gay men

may have been killed this year in predominantly Shiite Muslim areas,

the report's authors said, basing their conclusion on interviews with

gay Iraqi men, hospital officials and an unnamed United Nations

official in Baghdad…Reports of slayings targeting gay men began circulating early this

spring in Sadr City, a conservative Shiite district in eastern Baghdad.

Gay men were also reportedly slain in Basra, Najaf and Diyala province,

Human Rights Watch said.

Gay activists said militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr

had target lists containing the names of men suspected of being gay. … Sadr City residents opposed to homosexuality said in interviews that

the presence of gay men became overt after the Iraqi army was allowed

to move into the district in the spring of 2008, asserting control over

a vast area formerly controlled by Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army. 'When the Iraqi army started coming here, this phenomenon started

coming to our area,' said Ali Abu Kara, 23, a mechanic who identified

himself as a member of the Mahdi Army. 'We felt very glad when those

puppies were killed,' he added, using a pejorative term for gay men."

The "social cleansing" appears to have slowed in recent months, the group reports, because many gays have fled cities or gone underground to escape the brutality.