264
submitted 5 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 months ago

These kinds of "morality" laws always have a built-in slippery slope that entrenches police and judicial corruption, see here:

the bill would also impose a minimum seven-year prison sentence for “promoting homosexuality,” which is undefined in the bill (...) While consensual gay sex is not explicitly outlawed under current law in Iraq, vague “morality” clauses in the country’s penal code are routinely used to target LGBTQ+ people (...) who said it was necessary to “preserve the entity of the Iraqi society from deviation and calls for ‘paraphilia’ [abnormal sexual impulses] that have invaded the world.”

First they speak of homosexuality, half an hour later they're speaking about deviant behavior and paraphilias. What does count as any of those though? Practicing anal or oral sex? Having pornographic material? Wearing jeans as a woman, or letting your hair slightly long as a man? The vagueness is the purpose: by declaring a not very well defined enemy, people in positions of relative power (a policeman, a judge, a local governor) are capable of promoting witch-hunts about anyone who makes a faux pas.

Ruining the lives of 5-10% of your society's population is bad enough, but the main purpose of these moves is promoting conformity and entrenching corruption as a means of exerting political power.

this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
264 points (97.1% liked)

World News

38563 readers
2523 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS