Pakistan UN envoy among famous gays

Pakistan is one of the strangest countries when it comes to gays. There is lot of gay sex, but the subject is a big taboo.

Majority of men, even those married, would not lose an opportunity to have sex with another man, however.

A number of top Pakistanis are secretly gay.

One of the most prominent gays in Pakistan today is the country's present representative to the United Nations, Hussain Haroon. Likewise his brother Hameed Haroon, who runs the Dawn newspaper is also gay. Among the two, Hameed is said to be more flamboyant than Hussain.

Old timers in Karachi say the Haroons deceased father Saeed Haroon and their uncle, Yusuf Haroon, who contributed lavishly to the Reagan presidential campaign, are widely known to be gay.

Haroon is not the first high-ranking diplomat whose sexuality is an open secret. Prior to him Zia Ispahani, former ambassador to the US was quite a flamboyant gay.

A gay chat room in Karachi almost ten years ago had two very prominent members: Asim Raza, son-in-law of coup leader-turned-president Gen. President Pervez and Ameer Bhutto, son of former Sindh chief minister Mumtaz Bhutto.

More than five years ago, the head of a state government in Pakistan was caught in the eye of a political storm after descriptions of his gay lifestyle were leaked to the press in bickering between the country’s spy bosses, reports from the mostly military-ruled nation said.

Pakistan’s Friday Times weekly published an exposé that the chief minister of Pakistan’s southeastern state of Sindh, Ali Mohammed Maher, was gay and loved late-night dancing parties, sometimes in women’s clothes.

In a follow-up report, the now defunct U.S.-based South Asian Tribune attributed the press leaks in the conservative Muslim nation to an infighting between two army generals—Ehsanul Haq and his deputy Ehtesham Zamir Jaffery—both of whom command the country’s infamous spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

“I commend Maher (for being less discreet than other closeted officials),” said Hasan Mujtaba, an openly bisexual intellectual and writer originally from Maher’s home state. “This is something ideological, really mystical, as it has never happened before in history. Not even during the Mogul era in India, when some rulers and princes were highly closeted gays.”

The local Sindhi vernacular press blacked out the news item because of Maher’s tribal and political clout. Mujtaba added that the way Maher’s sexuality was presented in the “homophobic” media was all the more deplorable.

Mujtaba said, “In Pakistan’s peculiar context, none would come to (Maher’s) defense. This is a prime case for international human and gay rights bodies to lobby and fight for him.”

Two other famous gays from Sindh are are Makhdoom Khaliquzzaman, who belongs to a highly spiritual family and Saleem Shehzad, a leader of the pro-terror outfit Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

From Baluchistan, newspapaer publisher Fasih Iqbal was one of the more prominent gays. A second was governor Fazle Agha. Quite a few nationalist leaders in Baluchistan are also bisexual and love men, despite being happily married.

As per Islamic law, called Shariah, which cannot be challenged under Pakistan’s constitution, a gay person can even be sentenced to death. Though no such sentence has ever been actually passed, the law hangs over the heads of gays in Pakistan.

As in Oman, Palestine, Morocco, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, there are closeted gays in Pakistan’s power structure, but any “coming out” is simply inconceivable. Public disgrace and stiff penalties, even death, befall common gay men.

According to the late Abdul Fatah Memon, Pakistan's slain premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto admitted to having gay sex. "But he said it was forced on him by a male servant."

The prominent gays now deceased, include President Ghulam Ishaq Khan -- who also liked cross-dressing--, former chief minister of Frontier province Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, Pakistan Peoples Party politician Pyarali Allana, and one of the country's founding father Abdur Rab Nishtar.