October 14, 2004
The killing of women by Islamic groups in Iraq continues unabated
by Houzan Mahmoud
The suffering of women in Iraq has intensified considerably at the hands of the Islamic groups since the start of war and the occupation of Iraq. These atrocities take place before the eyes of the occupying forces and without ever being condemned by them. The treatment of women by occupying forces themselves is not much better than that of the Islamic groups. The treatment of women in their custody which has included harassment, torture, rape as well as degrading attitudes towards women in general has contributed to an atmosphere of fear and haplessness for women.
The Islamic groups resort to every possible method to terrorize Iraqi women; by inflaming the sense of insecurity, kidnapping and killing and by terrorizing the whole society they pursue their aim of forcing women out of social life and into the confines of homes. While opposing the occupying forces the main trust of the Islamic group's violence is aimed at women. Fighting the occupying forces has served as a pretext to direct the brunt of their attacks against. Separated, isolated, excluded and enslaved women is the foundation for an Islamic society. Preventing women from work and education, two important elements of a woman's independence are also being targeted.
In the last three months 8 women have been killed in the city of Mousel alone by Islamic terror groups. These women have been killed because Islamic gangsters do not want women to go to work, terrorizing them to stay at home, wear veils, remain segregated from men, and to prevent them from working in public. The crimes of these women were that they did not observe the Quranic rules. They paid for it with their lives. The wrath of the Islamists has also been targeted against the foreign nationals, including women, in Iraq. Simona Torretta, the head of the Baghdad office, and Simona Pari, both 29, and the two Iraqis who were identified as Raad Ali Aziz and Mahnaz Bassam - who were working for an agency called "A bridge to Baghdad" in Iraq - were the victims of the kidnappers. Targeting women for their political gains is a desperate act by the Islamists. However, such acts have exposed the real characters of these criminals to the Iraqi people.
The Islamic groups are terrorizing Iraqi society to impose their dark rules. They target civilians to advance their inhumane agenda. We have seen how they kidnap workers who have been forced to migrate to Iraq in the hope of earning a living to feed their families. The killing of the 12 workers from Nepal is yet another example.
The recent kidnapping of the two journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, working for Radio France-Internationale and Le Figaro, shows the ultimate bankruptcy of Political Islam, demanding the French government lift the ban on veil at France's schools. These are some examples amongst many, and they are in facts demonstrating how remote these Islamic gangsters are from the demands, aspirations and desires of modern human beings. The veil, polygamous marriages for men and stoning of women are to become the norms of the society. But the question is that if these were to become the norms of any society, would we really call it a "human society"? Or the brutal rules of the jungle. In order to end all these violations of women's rights in Iraq by Islamists we have to be united and confront political Islam wherever it starts to threaten our liberties.
STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST SAKAR AHMED, OWFI-ARBILSakar Ahmed, the OWFI Arbil branch chairperson, has been subject to ceaseless death threats since mid July 2004 made by her brothers, while she continues her activities in defending women's rights in Iraq in general an In Arbil specifically. Sakar Ahmedhas been severely assaulted by her brothers, Serdar and Dara. who attacked her at home where she lives with her mother and two sisters. The scars of physical violence are apparent on her. Now she suffers deep trauma. If this is the destiny of a woman defending her rights and women's rights, what violence and humiliation are other women subjected to, especially those who are yet to have the chance to defend themselves?
We, the OWFI, while witnessing the organized violence posed by Sakar's family to stop Sakar's activities and to maintain reactionary anti-woman practices, ask the government and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan to secure Sakar's life. Sakar has waged for more than a decade a wave of struggle in defence of women's rights, issued "Al-Musawat" in Kurdish for months, run many seminars in Kurdistan, and helped establishing links with women's organizations in Kurdistan. Now she is authoring a book to document honor killings.
We, the Organization of Woman's Freedom of Iraq, the bold defenders of woman's rights, would not accept any harm against Sakar, her mother and her sisters. We hold the government of Party of Democratic Kurdistan and Nechervan Barazany, its President, responsible for Sakar's and her mother's and her sisters' lives. We ask the government to detain Serdar and Dara, who assaulted Sakar and to take this as an action of criminality. We ask the women's organizations active in Kurdistan to defend Sakar, one of woman's activists in Kurdistan. Any violence against any woman in Kurdistan is humiliation and assault against all the women in Kurdistan. Domestic violence against women is not a family business as Mr. Samad, Sakar's father, tries to put it. Domestic violence is a concern of the whole society. The community in Kurdistan, as any civilized community, should set its norms and take its measures to stop violence against women no matter what its reasons are.
The Organization of Women's Freedom of Iraq asks the Nechervan's government to:
•Completely protect Sakar's and her sisters' lives.
•Order her brothers and father not to approach Sakar, her mother and her
sisters.
•Sue Serdar and Dara for hitting Sakar.
We ask pro-women organizations and human rights organizations to send support letters to press for stopping domestic violence, to back up a woman activists, and stand up for those women who silently suffer. It is high time supportive letters were sent to the Party of Democratic Kurdistan and its government in Arbil and all over the world. Please send a copy of your support letter to our email:nadia64uk@yahoo.com
houzan73@yahoo.com.uk
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