Gay Refugee Found Murdered & Mutilated in Istanbul After Missing for Two Days

Muhammed Wisam Sankari, a gay refugee living in Turkey, went missing last month. He was then found dead two days later only a mile outside of his home. Sankari had been stabbed and beaten so intensely that his friends could only identify his body from the pants he was wearing.

According to his friend Gorkem, this wasn't the first time that Sankari had been attacked. A few month ago Sankari was taken out of a historic center in Instanbul. "They took him to a forest, beat him and raped him. They were going to kill him, but he saved himself by jumping on the road," Gorkem told KaosGL, a Turkish LGBT magazine.

Gorkem also said they reported the incident to the police afterward, but "nothing happened."

"I am so scared," one of Sankari's roommates added. "No one cares about us. They just talk. I get threats over the phone."

This past June, police started firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowded streets when citizens tried to hold a LGBT pride parade in Instanbul, even though the event had been banned.

Unfortunately, many countries in the middle east have deemed homosexuality illegal, and even though Turkey is not one of them, homophobia is clearly a potent--and deadly--point of contention.