For gays under IS rule, isolation and fear of a cruel death

REYHANLI, Turkey -- Before a crowd of men on a street in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the masked Islamic State group judge read out the sentence against the two men convicted of homosexuality: They would be thrown to their deaths from the roof of the nearby Wael Hotel.

He asked one of the men whether he was satisfied with the sentence. Death, the judge told him, would help cleanse him of his sin.

"I'd prefer it if you shoot me in the head," 32-year-old Hawas Mallah replied helplessly. The second man, 21-year-old Mohammed Salameh, pleaded for a chance to repent, promising never to have sex with a man again, according to a witness among the onlookers that sunny July morning who gave a firsthand account.

"Take them and throw them off," the judge ordered. Other masked extremists tied the men's hands behind their backs and blindfolded them. They led them to the roof of the four-story hotel, according to the witness, who spoke in the Turkish city of Reyhanli on condition he be identified only by his first name, Omar, for fear of reprisals.

Notorious for their gruesome methods of killing, the Islamic State group reserves one of its most brutal for suspected homosexuals. Videos it has released show masked militants dangling men over the precipices of buildings by their legs to drop them head-first or tossing them over the edge.

At least 36 men in Syria and Iraq have been killed by IS on charges of sodomy, according to the New York-based OutRight Action International, although its Middle East and North Africa coordinator, Hossein Alizadeh, said it was not possible to confirm the sexual orientation of the victims.

The fear of a horrific death among gay men under Islamic State rule is compounded further by their isolation in a deeply conservative society that largely shuns them.

Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful. Gay men are haunted constantly by the possibility someone, perhaps even a relative, will betray them to the militants -- whether to curry favor with IS or simply out of hatred for their sexual orientation.

Islamic State group fighters sometimes torture suspected homosexuals to reveal their friends' names and search their laptops and mobile phones.

Even among IS opponents, gays find little sympathy. Some in the public who might be shocked by other IS atrocities say killings of gays is justified. Syrian rebel factions have killed or abused gays as well.

A 26-year-old Syrian gay man said even two years after fleeing to Turkey, he wakes up shaken by nightmares he is about to be hurled from a building. The man spoke on condition he be identified as Daniel Halaby, the name he now uses in his activism tracking IS atrocities, and the city in Turkey where he lives not be named for his own safety.

Halaby said a childhood friend who became radicalized and joined IS betrayed him to the militants in 2013, forcing him to flee his home city of Aleppo.

"He knew everything about me, such as being secular and gay. ... I am sure he is the one who gave my name to Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

At that time, in mid-2013, IS had just started to spread from neighboring Iraq into Syria. It didn't yet hold the large stretches of territory across both countries it would capture the next year. Instead, its fighters pushed into rebel-held areas in Syria and tried to dominate other rebels, often clashing with them for control and imposing the group's strict law wherever they could.

In September 2013, IS fighters besieged the Aleppo neighborhood where Halaby lived with his family, trying to wrest it from the rebel Free Syrian Army. The two sides negotiated over an end to the siege, and during the talks, IS gave the rebels a list of people they demanded be handed over to them. Halaby learned his name was on that list.

He escaped to Turkey.

There, his bedroom is decorated with a flag of the Syrian opposition and a rainbow banner that covers an entire wall. His parents, who remain in Aleppo, refuse to talk to him because of his sexual orientation. When he watches videos of gays being killed, he said, "What breaks my heart most is that I feel helpless."