Islamic State says it killed 30 for sodomy, UN told

The Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility for executing at least 30 people for sodomy, the head of an international gay rights organization says at the first-ever UN Security Council meeting spotlighting what organizers call the “barbaric treatment.”

“It’s about time, 70 years after the creation of the UN, that the fate of LGBT persons who fear for their lives around the world is taking center stage,” says US Ambassador Samantha Power, who organized the meeting on violence and discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people with Chile’s UN envoy.

Jessica Stern, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, tells 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.

Fear of the Islamic State group has fueled violence by other militias and “private actors” against LGBT individuals, she tells the closed-door meeting.

— AP