Gay Syrian Exile Sounds the Alarm

Subhi Nahas has a soft and tender voice. When he speaks the pain and struggle is self-evident.

"I cannot recognize the people," he says over the telephone from California where he resides, for the moment. The people Nahas speaks of are Syrians from his native land. These people, Nahas says, have been misled by radical groups and all but abandoned by civil society.

The Syria he grew up in - an open, secular and welcoming country -- is no more.

Sadly, Nahas says the middle-eastern country has devolved into a chaotic land where living openly as a gay man is impossible. On Aug. 24, Nahas made history when he addressed the United Nations Security Council about the persecution of LGBT people by Islamic militant groups.

"He's one of the bravest men on the planet," said Neil Grungras, founder and executive director of ORAM (Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration).

Grungras, a leading expert on LGBT refugees, met Nahas in Istanbul, Turkey. The two formed a bond as social justice activists, but as an "outed" 20-something Arabic gay man, Nahas' life was in far more danger. He had traveled to Turkey from Syria via Lebanon after realizing he was a target of the Sunni extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra.

Caught in a security sweep near Damascus in 2012, Nahas was detained by the Syrian government and mocked for his mannerisms.

"They did not like the way I walked or the way I talked," he said in a telephone interview with SFGN. "They called me names - vulgar names. It was terrifying."

Eventually released, Nahas returned home to a father who became increasingly angry and abusive. His family refused to accept their son's sexuality, calling it a disease that needed to be cured. Not long after his detention, Jabhat al-Nusra took control of the family's hometown of Idlib, in northern Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, Nahas said, were determined to cleanse the city "of everyone who was involved in sodomy."

And so with the help of friends, Nahas fled to Lebanon and then to Turkey.

"However, Turkey is not a safe place either," he said. "My friends there have sent me pictures of their wounds from police rubber bullets at Istanbul Pride in June. 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.'"

Nahas said he hoped his testimony to the U.N. Security Council would help curb the violence towards LGBT people in the Middle East.

"Like me, my friends are feeling alone and terrified living in places where people who don't fit into what others deem as 'normal,' are being persecuted and killed simply for who they are and what they believe."

The U.S. and Chile co-sponsored the closed door briefing at the U.N. as representatives from 11 of the 15 Security Council countries participated. Diplomats from the African countries of Chad and Angola did not attend the meeting, while representatives from China, Russia, Nigeria and Malaysia attended but did not speak.

"I have witnessed with my own eyes the annihilation of civility and humanity as I knew them," Nahas told the council. "For millions of Syrians both in and outside the country, time is running out. For my compatriots who do not conform to gender and sexual norms, the eleventh hour has already passed. They need your help now."

The current Syrian government, Nahas said, is incapable of protecting its citizens, much less LGBT Syrians. When asked about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Nahas replied, "Assad did not do anything to stop the violence and the media refused to report it."

Nahas said many of the Arabic media outlets are mistranslating his words and presenting him as a "pervert." Meanwhile, militant groups such as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) continue to publicly execute men simply for being perceived as gay.

Videos and pictures of men-- blindfolded and hands tied behind their backs -- being thrown to their death off of rooftops are plastered across social media. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission estimates at least 30 men accused of sodomy have been executed by the Islamic State.

"ISIL have graphically advertised their murders of men who they claim engaged in same-sex relations. These men have died in circumstances of unimaginable horror - stoned, beheaded, thrown from buildings. These horrific acts are yet more evidence of ISIL's utter depravity and strategy of instilling fear as a method of warfare," said United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson.

Nahas said he remains in contact with his sister in Syria as well as other gay Syrians who are seeking refuge.

"I am trying my best working with ORAM to get them out of Syria and to safety and to give them their lives back," he said.