But there are no plans to build a memorial to LGBTI victims of Islamic State
Iraq authorities are bulldozing a building that was home to hundreds of Islamic State (IS) homophobic crimes.
Many men accused of being gay were thrown off the seven-storey building that was once home to the National Insurance Company in Mosul.
The building, ravaged by the battle to end IS rule, will be removed.
IS were finally removed from Mosul in the summer of 2017.
A new government building will likely take its place. There are no plans to build a memorial to LGBTI victims of IS.
How Islamic State murdered gay men
Under IS, or Da’esh rule, hundreds of gay men were murdered in Iraq and Syria.
The photos and videos would then be published on IS channels, or sent to Arabic-speaking journalists.
Experts believed IS warlords deliberately sent this out as propaganda, boasting of their ‘success’.
ISIS members have previously referred to gay people as the ‘worst of creatures’.
The executions typically followed a pattern. It is believed the extremists often drug the victim. They would then blindfold them, cuff their hands behind their backs, and lead them to the top of a high building.
A mob would be awaiting the execution. The killers would then announce the man was found guilty of homosexuality. They would then hurl him off the edge.
If the victim survived the fall, a crowd gathered stoned the man to death.
Should the Iraq plot become a tribute to LGBTI victims of IS?
The Iraqi government originally hoped to restore the building, called a ‘onetime icon of modern Iraqi architecture’.
Abu Mahmud, a resident of Mosul, said he believed the building should have remained as it was.
‘This building is extremely important architecturally as it’s one of the modern icons of the city and of its recent history,’ Mahmud told AFP.
‘So the relevant authorities should have also kept it this way, as a witness to the ugliness of Daesh’s crimes against Mosul.’
Samira Ali, another resident, disagreed.
‘I hope this building is removed and that a garden or museum is erected in its place,’ she said.
‘It’s a terrifying sight. It reminds me of the death penalty Da’esh would mete out against innocent people by throwing them off the roof.’
Destroying ISIS altar of death
The National Insurance Company building was designed by celebrated Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji in the 1960s.
It had been regarded as a prime example of modern Iraqi design. It featured rows of slim archways and projected windows reminiscent of Iraq's famous 'shanasheel'.
But it became notorious under ISIS, which used the seven-storey structure to kill young men it said had violated Islamic law by being gay.
Pictures showed jihadists apparently dangling the accused men off the edge of the building by their ankles before dropping them to their deaths.
'It's prone to collapse because of the rockets, shelling, and explosions that hit it and destroyed large parts of it,' Mohammad Jassem, a municipal official representing Mosul's nearby Old City, told AFP.
'A committee was formed to study the building and assessed it was no longer viable, and that any restoration at this stage would be futile.'
He said discussions were ongoing to demolish other buildings damaged in the fighting, including Mosul's branch of the central bank and the Nineveh governorate.
Last year, Iraqi cellist and conductor Karim Wasfi played a concert in front of what remained of the NIC building as part of a peace initiative for the city.
Now, about a month after demolition work began, only three floors remain. Chunks of concrete and metal wires hang off its edges, grazing the growing mounds of rubble around it.
Its destruction has divided Moslawis.
'This building is extremely important architecturally as it's one of the modern icons of the city and of its recent history,' said resident Abu Mahmud, 33.
'So the relevant authorities should have kept it this way, as a witness to the ugliness of Daesh's crimes against Mosul,' he told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
But Samira Ali, another resident, disagreed.
'I hope this building is removed and that a garden or museum is erected in its place,' she told AFP.
'It's a terrifying sight. It reminds me of the death penalty Daesh would mete out against innocent people by throwing them off the roof.'
A mosque, but no memorial
Ghada Rzouki, an architecture professor at the University of Baghdad, said the NIC building represents Iraq's 'age of modernity' but was superseded by Mosul's other cultural gems.
'I was born in Mosul. In my view, there are many other religious and heritage sites that no one is paying attention to but which should be protected,' she said.
Another local official told AFP a new government building would likely be erected on the same plot of land but that there had been no plans to set up a memorial to victims of IS crimes there.
The NIC building lies near Mosul's Old City, which was ravaged by fighting and where the UN's heritage agency UNESCO is undertaking some restoration work.
Last month, UNESCO and Iraqi religious leaders laid the cornerstone to rebuild Mosul's Al-Nuri mosque and adjacent leaning minaret, two of the city's most celebrated emblems.
, Joe Morgan;
Mail Online, Tim Stickings, AFP, January 14, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
