Same-sex people must ‘be killed’, Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief says in latest LGBTQ attack
- ‘This is a real danger … [gay people] even if they do it once … are to be killed’, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the country’s powerful Hezbollah, said
- Religiously diverse Lebanon is one of the Middle East’s more liberal countries, but LGBTQ people face systematic social, economic and legal discrimination
The leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement on Saturday stepped up his attacks against the region’s long-marginalised LGBTQ community.
“We are not making up battles, nor are we making up dangers. This is a real danger that is imminent and has begun,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech for the annual Ashura commemoration, among the most important in Shiite Islam.
Last week, Nasrallah had said gay people, “even if they do it once … are to be killed”.
In his latest comments Nasrallah said that, “In Lebanon, this danger started with some educational institutions, and NGOs,” which he accused of “promoting” same-sex relations to children. He called on the ministry of education to intervene.
Many Western governments consider Hezbollah to be a “terrorist” organisation.
It is the only side not to have disarmed following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, and it is a powerful player in the politics of Lebanon, whose economy has collapsed since 2019.