Which words can I describe this video? painful; sad; tyranny, destruction?
Who should we blame about this horrible abuses to our Iraqies women?
Who is responsible about this crime?
Is this the " new Iraq"?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/08/28/2996081.htm
Who should we accuse about this humanity's crime? some people would say this is what America's brought for Iraq! But, let us be realistic, why we should always blame the whole world while WE (middle-eastern people) are doing the mistakes by own hands!
I have always a reaction from Arab world & no one can blame me for that, you can see from a side the man controlling the woman & abuses her, practicing the violent on her & from other side he wants from her to satisfy his "dirty desire" & "dirty pleasure"!
Here the government should take an important role to protect women & support women by giving them their rights & with NGO would aid women so they can feel they are protected & not alone in this wild & barbarian world.
Then don't get me wrong I'm not saying that western world is perfect, actually no one is perfect & the west is not a paradise, BUT the difference between west & east, even dogs & cats have rights too in west, & everyone is responsible for his choices, while our women are treated like animals!
At the end I want to say that women aren't weak, women aren't cheap, women is the source of nations...
Showing posts with label Iraq/Women's Rights.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq/Women's Rights.. Show all posts
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Inside Iraq.
I was thinking how it would be wonderful to just go in a picnic or just go outside "hanging out" with friends, going to some entertainment places, like theater, cinema, sport's clubs or gym. well, that it could be but not in Iraq, we don't have nothing like that here. nothing at all. we can't go outside alone cause it is dangerous, & I can't go outside alone, no friends, no fun, no parks, social parks that we can meet people or our families can enjoying time seeing their kids playing, just enjoying the life like other people in the world, but, I can tell it is better than 2005,2006 & 2007, there is a reconstruction in some area in Iraq but going very slowly, Besides, we hear about projects here & there, Where are they on the land???
Why they don't offer jobs for women so they can sharing men to re-build a new Iraq???
They don't believe in women, then why should we believe in men???
They don't believe in women, then why should we believe in men???
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Iraq’s Beauty Queen
.Nations give to their women a precious place in their society not just give their rights but also, giving a value of their beauty, give her sense of her femininity; from that level you can measure that nation as a civilized nation, country because one reasons of nations development is relating with women & their rights & how they have an effective roles in societies.
-What about Iraq’s beautiful women now?
-Where they are? Or who hid them? Why we don’t hear about our beauty queen? Iraq’s Beauty Queen?
The interesting thing in this issue we had our beauty queen in 1947!!!!!!
Her name is Reneh Dankor.
- Can you believe it????
-Imagine Iraq before 60 years ago & enjoying with beauty.
-Imagine a country had time & mood to have a beauty queen at that time where life was simpled as they said.
YES, we had Iraq’s beauty queen at that time, someone will ask which is better situation for Iraq at 1947 or 2010 ????
If we are talking about traditions there were traditions too at that time!
If we are talking about political field, Iraq was under royal reign at that time!
If we are talking about culture we are better than 1947 we are more open minded to the world, we are in Technology period!
But, sadly we have a serious issues, Terrorism one of our hard issue smashing & destroying every sense of life, every sense of beauty. Besides there are strangers from outside, especially from neighborhood countries & they sell to us terrorism language which is strange & bad language by all means, it isn’t our language it isn’t language of living.
To be optimistic Iraq is better than 2005, 2006 & 2007 even we have dramatic days sometimes but in general it is better than 2005, 2006 & 2007.
-We have Iraq’s beauty queen in history, why it became a crime today in 2010???
So, who is responsible of not having Iraq’s beauty queen inside Iraq?
-What about Iraq’s beautiful women now?
-Where they are? Or who hid them? Why we don’t hear about our beauty queen? Iraq’s Beauty Queen?
The interesting thing in this issue we had our beauty queen in 1947!!!!!!
- Can you believe it????
-Imagine Iraq before 60 years ago & enjoying with beauty.
-Imagine a country had time & mood to have a beauty queen at that time where life was simpled as they said.
YES, we had Iraq’s beauty queen at that time, someone will ask which is better situation for Iraq at 1947 or 2010 ????
If we are talking about traditions there were traditions too at that time!
If we are talking about political field, Iraq was under royal reign at that time!
If we are talking about culture we are better than 1947 we are more open minded to the world, we are in Technology period!
But, sadly we have a serious issues, Terrorism one of our hard issue smashing & destroying every sense of life, every sense of beauty. Besides there are strangers from outside, especially from neighborhood countries & they sell to us terrorism language which is strange & bad language by all means, it isn’t our language it isn’t language of living.
To be optimistic Iraq is better than 2005, 2006 & 2007 even we have dramatic days sometimes but in general it is better than 2005, 2006 & 2007.
-We have Iraq’s beauty queen in history, why it became a crime today in 2010???
So, who is responsible of not having Iraq’s beauty queen inside Iraq?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Iraqi Women’s League.
Our women after 2003 in Basra/Iraq.
“Despite the relative improvement in the security situation, our Iraqi people continue to live in an atmosphere of general chaos that is unprecedented for Iraq or other countries.
Perhaps the most important manifestation of this chaos is the lawlessness, unbridled terrorism, insecurity and the spread of organized crime. This situation has claimed the lives of more than fifty women during the second half of this year, with the murders being carried out by extremist and reactionary forces and criminal gangs, under various social, religious and political motives and pretexts.
Iraqi women, who are subjected to various forms of discrimination, oppression and exploitation, and who face violence on a daily basis and through various means, are today facing mass killings because of the widespread terrorism targeting them. Most heinous murders are committed against them, in broad daylight with impunity. The killings of women in the city of Basra are but a terrible proof of the barbarism of their perpetrators and those who stand behind them.
Despite the condemnation of these crimes, the government and the relevant authorities have not taken the necessary measures against these crimes, to put an end to them and punish their perpetrators.
We, in Iraqi Women s League, strongly condemn the crimes of killing women in Basra and other Iraqi towns, and denounce all forms of violations of human rights in Iraq, and call upon international organizations, the Iraqi Government and relevant authorities to:1 - Send an international fact-finding mission to Iraq, to be organized by the UN High Commission for Human Rights with the participation of international human rights organizations, to investigate the crimes against women, help the Iraqi authorities to identify the perpetrators and work to stop these crimes.
2 - Reveal the criminals and those who stand behind them, and bring them to justice.
3 - Disclose the outcome of the investigations.
4 - Take measures to safeguard personal freedoms that are constitutionally guaranteed.
5 - Take deterrent measures to ensure the safety of citizens and protect their lives.
6 - Act firmly to improve the conditions of women and facilitate their involvement in the reconstruction process.
Iraqi Women s League / Co-ordinating Committee Abroad
3-1-2008”
http://www.ahewar.org/camp/i.asp?id=111
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Brave Mother in Basra.
This is a story of brave woman in Basra/Iraq.
Rand's Story :
The crime, so grotesque, is not the worst of it. After stomping to death, the father was released from custody, "'Not much can be done when we have an "honour killing" case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws".
When Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, told her closest friend that she was in love from the moment she set eyes on the young British soldier working alongside her in Basra, and she dreamed of a future with him.
And as Rand was put into the ground, without ceremony, her uncles spat on her covered corpse because she had brought shame on the family. Her crime was the worst they could possibly imagine - she had fallen in love with a British soldier and dared to talk to him in public.
Rand was murdered last month. That the relationship was innocent was no defence. She had been seen conversing intimately with Paul. It was enough to condemn her, because he was British, a Christian, 'the invader', and the enemy. The two met while he was helping to deliver relief aid to displaced families in the city and she was working as a volunteer. They continued to meet through their relief work in the following months.
'But the thing she used to like talking about best was how he praised her beauty and her intelligence. She told me he called her "princess".said Zeinab (Zeinab is Rand's best friend ).
Despite knowing how dangerous the consequences of her actions could be, and the punishment she faced if caught, her passion for Paul grew stronger, said Zeinab. 'She never did anything more than talk to him. She was proud to be a virgin and had a dream to give herself to the man she loved only after her marriage. But she was seen as an animal,' said Zeinab
What the father & two brothers did with Rand?
Rand last saw Paul in January, two months before her death. It was only on 16 March that her father, Abdel-Qader Ali, learned of their friendship. He was told by a friend, who worked closely with police, that Rand had been seen with Paul at one of the places they both worked as volunteers. Enraged, he headed straight home to demand an explanation from his daughter.
'When he entered the house, his eyes were bloodshot and he was trembling,' said Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, tears streaming down her face as she recalled her daughter's murder. 'I got worried and tried to speak to him but he headed straight for our daughter's room and he started to yell at her.'
'He asked if it was true that she was having an affair with a British soldier. She started to cry. She was nervous and desperate. He got hold of her hair and started thumping her again and again.
'I screamed and called out for her two brothers so they could get their father away from her. But when he told them the reason, instead of saving her they helped him end her life,' she said.
She said Ali used his feet to press down hard on his own daughter's throat until she was suffocated. Then he called for a knife and began to cut at her body. All the time he was calling out that his honour was being cleansed.
'I just couldn't stand it. I fainted.' recalled Leila. 'I woke up in a blur later with dozens of neighbours at home and the local police.'
According to Leila, her husband was initially arrested. 'But he was released two hours later because it was an "honour killing". And, unfortunately, that is something to be proud of for any Iraqi man.'
At the police station where the father was held Sergeant Ali Jabbar told The Observer last week: 'Not much can be done when we have an "honour killing" case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.
I thought we liberated Iraq. Read it all and weep.
'What they did to her was ugly and pathetic. Rand was just a young girl with romantic dreams. She always kept her religion close to her heart. She would never even hurt a petal on a rose.'
Last year 133 women were killed in Basra - 47 of them for so-called 'honour killings', according to the Basra Security Committee. Out of those 47 cases there have been only three convictions for murder.
Mother who defied the killers is gunned down Guardian UK hat tip Davida
Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband - the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal 'honour' killing for which he has shown no remorse.
Why weren't the Americans protecting her? This is why we fought and died? To institute sharia?
Though she feared reprisals for speaking out, she really believed that she would soon be safe. Arrangements were well under way to smuggle her to the Jordanian capital, Amman. In fact, she was on her way to meet the person who would help her escape when a car drew up alongside her and two other women who were walking her to a taxi. Five bullets were fired: three of them hit Leila, 41. She died in hospital after futile attempts to save her.
Her death, on 17 May, is the shocking denouement to a tragedy which had its origins in an innocent friendship between her student daughter, Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, and a blond, 22-year-old British soldier known only as Paul.
She died, still a virgin, four months after she had last seen him when her father, Abdel-Qader Ali, 46, discovered that she had been seen talking 'to the enemy' in public. She had brought shame on his honour, was his defence, and he had to cleanse his family name. Despite openly admitting the murder, he has received no punishment.
Notice how the dhimmi media always points out that she was still a VIRGIN. So what? And if she wasn't then there might be cause. The status of the girl's vagina has no place in this story NONE.
It was two weeks after Rand's death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step. Leila told The Observer in April: 'No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.'
They didn't protect this woman who had been beaten and had her arm broken?
Her words were to prove prescient. Leila turned to the only place she could, a small organisation in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against 'honour' killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats - notes calling her a 'prostitute' and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.
Even her sons Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, whom she claimed aided their father in their sister's killing, disowned her. Meanwhile, her husband, a former government employee, escaped any charges, and even told The Observer that police had congratulated him on what he had done.
All of our blood and treasure, for this. Why didn't the Americans arrest him?
It is not known who killed Leila. All that is known is that she was staying at the house of 'Mariam', one of the women's rights campaigners, whose identity The Observer has agreed not to reveal. On the morning of 17 May, they were joined by another volunteer worker and set off to meet 'a contact' who was to help Leila travel to Amman, where she would be taken in by an Iraqi family.
'Leila was anxious, but she was also happy at having the chance to leave Iraq,' said Mariam. 'Since the death of her daughter, her own life was at serious risk. And this was a great opportunity for her to leave the country and to fight for Iraqi women's rights.
'She had not been able to sleep the night before. I stayed up talking to her about her plans after she arrived in Amman. I gave her some clothes to take with her and she was packing the only bag she had. She was too excited to sleep.'
Mariam said that when she awoke Leila had already prepared breakfast, cleaned her house and even baked a date cake as a thank-you for the help she had been given. After the arrival of 'Faisal', the volunteer (whose identity is also being protected), the three left the house at 10.30am and started walking to the end of the street to get a taxi. They had walked less than 50 metres when they heard a car drive up fast and then gunshots rang out. The attack, said by witnesses to have been carried out by three men, was over in minutes. Leila was hit by three bullets. Mariam was hit in her left arm and Faisal in her left leg. 'I didn't realise I had been shot for a few seconds, because as I heard the gunfire I saw Leila falling to the ground and saw blood pouring from her head,' said Mariam. 'I was so shocked, I didn't immediately feel the pain.'
Two men ran from their homes to help. They rushed Leila to hospital and a passing taxi took the other two. But Leila died at 3.20pm, despite several operations to save her. As she lay in her own hospital bed receiving treatment, Mariam said that she heard someone saying that Leila had been shot in the head. But there were other mutterings that were clearly audible. 'I could hear people talking on the corridors and the only thing that they had to say was that Leila was wrong for defending her daughter's mistakes and that her death was God's punishment.
'In that minute I just had complete hatred in my heart for those who had killed her.'
Police said the incident was a sectarian attack and that there was nothing to link Leila's death to her family.
Read that again. This is the same police that let the stomping murderer go. Do we need to believe anything they say?
'Her ex-husband was not in Basra when it happened. We found out he was visiting relatives in Nassiriya with his two sons,' said Hassan Alaa, a senior officer at the local police station in Basra. 'We believe the target was the women activists, rather than Mrs Hussein, and that she was unlucky to be in that place at that time.'
These men should rot in hell.
It is plausible. Campaigners for women's' rights are not acceptable to many sections of Iraqi society, especially in Basra where militias have partial control in some districts and impose strict laws on locals, including what clothing they should wear and what religious practice they should follow.
Dhimmi media happy to assist the jihad!
Since February 2006, two other activists from the same women's organisation have been killed in the city. One of them was reportedly raped before being shot. The other, the only man working for the non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a father of five who was responsible for the organisation's finances, was shot five months ago.
There could be many with a grudge against such organisations. However, Mariam believes Leila was targeted, pointing out she had been hit by three bullets. 'When we were shot, they focused on Leila, not us,' she said.
Since the attack the NGO has stopped its work in Basra. 'We daren't answer the phones because we have received so many threats since we gave our support to Leila's case,' said Mariam. 'Most of our members are preparing to leave the city and even Iraq if they can raise the money.'
Iraq - the new democracy. Shining beacon of death.
A single mother since her husband was killed for refusing to join a militia, she too intends to move when she can. Faisal, who also survived her injuries, is still suffering post-surgical infection. She preferred not to speak, but her mother, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'My daughter is very shocked at what happened, and my two grandsons can't stop crying since they saw her in hospital.'
Leila's burial was arranged within hours of her death by the husband of one of her cousins and Mariam's father.
The Observer visited Rand's father and two brothers at their Basra home, but they refused to talk beyond Hassan proclaiming his father's innocence. When asked if he would be visiting his mother's grave, he shrugged: 'Maybe in the future.'
Leila was an orphan, raised by an uncle who died in the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. Hamida Alaa, 68, a friend of the uncle, said: 'The poor woman was killed and now her name and history is buried with her. No one wants to speak about it. She is just one more woman killed in our country who has already been forgotten by the local society.'
In the last days of her life, Leila was suffering from the pressure of having gone against her husband. 'She was sleeping with the help of sedatives,' said Mariam. 'She would wake up at night with terrible nightmares, even dreaming of being suffocated as her daughter was. She had been threatened so many times and that's why she was so scared. Her indignation over Rand's death is what led her to her own coffin. Their history ends here. But Leila was a hero. A woman who was strong enough to say no to Iraqi men's bad attitudes. Sadly most Iraqi women do not have the same strength and they will stay in their homes.'
Leila is my hero.
Mariam has moved out of her home. But within hours of speaking to The Observer a close friend went to her new address to deliver a message that had been left for her at her front door. It read: 'Death to betrayers of Islam who don't deserve God's forgiveness. Speaking less you will live more.' She believes it was sent by Leila's killers.
'They want this story to be buried with Leila,' she said. 'But I cannot close my eyes to all this.'
You can read more about this story from this link:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/06/mother-of-honor.html
Article:
BRAVE MOTHER OF HONOR KILLING VICTIM GUNNED DOWN BY MUSLIMS
I am going to SCREAM! They killed this woman. Leila Hussein had the courage to leave the barbarian that STOMPED HER DAUGHTER TO DEATH for talking with a British soldier. The brutal killer, the father, was then allowed to walk free from the police station. Is this what we spent all our blood and treasure for? Where is feminist outrage? Where are the damn womens groups, the leftards, the commies, the socialists, all the full-of-shitniks? Why wasn't this women protected? She was being threatened daily.
Five weeks ago Leila Hussein told The Observer the chilling story of how her husband had killed their 17-year-old daughter over her friendship with a British soldier in Basra. Now Leila, who had been in hiding, has been murdered - gunned down in cold blood. See the Observer story below for Islam's insatiable and depraved misogyny.
The crime, so grotesque, is not the worst of it. After stomping to death, the father was released from custody, "'Not much can be done when we have an "honour killing" case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws". Read her story her.
The crime, so grotesque, is not the worst of it. After stomping to death, the father was released from custody, "'Not much can be done when we have an "honour killing" case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws".
This is not the exception, but the rule
Her crime was to fall in love. She paid with her life The Guardian hat tip Yisrael
Investigation by Afif Sarhan in Basra, Mark Townsend and Caroline Davies
How Rand met Paul & what happened after that?
The two had met while Rand, an English student at Basra University, was working as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water. Although their friendship appears to have involved just brief, snatched conversations over four months, Rand had confided her romantic feelings for Paul to her best friend, Zeinab, 19.
When Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, told her closest friend that she was in love from the moment she set eyes on the young British soldier working alongside her in Basra, and she dreamed of a future with him.
It was an innocent infatuation but five months after Rand, a student of English at Basra University, met Paul, a 22-year-old soldier posted to southern Iraq, she was dead. She was stamped on, suffocated and stabbed by her father. Several brutal knife wounds punctured her slender, bruised body - from her face to her feet. He had done it, he proclaimed to the neighbours who soon gathered round, to 'cleanse his honour'.
And as Rand was put into the ground, without ceremony, her uncles spat on her covered corpse because she had brought shame on the family. Her crime was the worst they could possibly imagine - she had fallen in love with a British soldier and dared to talk to him in public.
Rand was murdered last month. That the relationship was innocent was no defence. She had been seen conversing intimately with Paul. It was enough to condemn her, because he was British, a Christian, 'the invader', and the enemy. The two met while he was helping to deliver relief aid to displaced families in the city and she was working as a volunteer. They continued to meet through their relief work in the following months.
'But the thing she used to like talking about best was how he praised her beauty and her intelligence. She told me he called her "princess".said Zeinab (Zeinab is Rand's best friend ).
Despite knowing how dangerous the consequences of her actions could be, and the punishment she faced if caught, her passion for Paul grew stronger, said Zeinab. 'She never did anything more than talk to him. She was proud to be a virgin and had a dream to give herself to the man she loved only after her marriage. But she was seen as an animal,' said Zeinab
What the father & two brothers did with Rand?
Rand last saw Paul in January, two months before her death. It was only on 16 March that her father, Abdel-Qader Ali, learned of their friendship. He was told by a friend, who worked closely with police, that Rand had been seen with Paul at one of the places they both worked as volunteers. Enraged, he headed straight home to demand an explanation from his daughter.
'When he entered the house, his eyes were bloodshot and he was trembling,' said Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, tears streaming down her face as she recalled her daughter's murder. 'I got worried and tried to speak to him but he headed straight for our daughter's room and he started to yell at her.'
'He asked if it was true that she was having an affair with a British soldier. She started to cry. She was nervous and desperate. He got hold of her hair and started thumping her again and again.
'I screamed and called out for her two brothers so they could get their father away from her. But when he told them the reason, instead of saving her they helped him end her life,' she said.
She said Ali used his feet to press down hard on his own daughter's throat until she was suffocated. Then he called for a knife and began to cut at her body. All the time he was calling out that his honour was being cleansed.
'I just couldn't stand it. I fainted.' recalled Leila. 'I woke up in a blur later with dozens of neighbours at home and the local police.'
According to Leila, her husband was initially arrested. 'But he was released two hours later because it was an "honour killing". And, unfortunately, that is something to be proud of for any Iraqi man.'
At the police station where the father was held Sergeant Ali Jabbar told The Observer last week: 'Not much can be done when we have an "honour killing" case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.
I thought we liberated Iraq. Read it all and weep.
'What they did to her was ugly and pathetic. Rand was just a young girl with romantic dreams. She always kept her religion close to her heart. She would never even hurt a petal on a rose.'
Last year 133 women were killed in Basra - 47 of them for so-called 'honour killings', according to the Basra Security Committee. Out of those 47 cases there have been only three convictions for murder.
Mother who defied the killers is gunned down Guardian UK hat tip Davida
Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband - the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal 'honour' killing for which he has shown no remorse.
Why weren't the Americans protecting her? This is why we fought and died? To institute sharia?
Though she feared reprisals for speaking out, she really believed that she would soon be safe. Arrangements were well under way to smuggle her to the Jordanian capital, Amman. In fact, she was on her way to meet the person who would help her escape when a car drew up alongside her and two other women who were walking her to a taxi. Five bullets were fired: three of them hit Leila, 41. She died in hospital after futile attempts to save her.
Her death, on 17 May, is the shocking denouement to a tragedy which had its origins in an innocent friendship between her student daughter, Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, and a blond, 22-year-old British soldier known only as Paul.
She died, still a virgin, four months after she had last seen him when her father, Abdel-Qader Ali, 46, discovered that she had been seen talking 'to the enemy' in public. She had brought shame on his honour, was his defence, and he had to cleanse his family name. Despite openly admitting the murder, he has received no punishment.
Notice how the dhimmi media always points out that she was still a VIRGIN. So what? And if she wasn't then there might be cause. The status of the girl's vagina has no place in this story NONE.
It was two weeks after Rand's death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step. Leila told The Observer in April: 'No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.'
They didn't protect this woman who had been beaten and had her arm broken?
Her words were to prove prescient. Leila turned to the only place she could, a small organisation in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against 'honour' killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats - notes calling her a 'prostitute' and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.
Even her sons Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, whom she claimed aided their father in their sister's killing, disowned her. Meanwhile, her husband, a former government employee, escaped any charges, and even told The Observer that police had congratulated him on what he had done.
All of our blood and treasure, for this. Why didn't the Americans arrest him?
It is not known who killed Leila. All that is known is that she was staying at the house of 'Mariam', one of the women's rights campaigners, whose identity The Observer has agreed not to reveal. On the morning of 17 May, they were joined by another volunteer worker and set off to meet 'a contact' who was to help Leila travel to Amman, where she would be taken in by an Iraqi family.
'Leila was anxious, but she was also happy at having the chance to leave Iraq,' said Mariam. 'Since the death of her daughter, her own life was at serious risk. And this was a great opportunity for her to leave the country and to fight for Iraqi women's rights.
'She had not been able to sleep the night before. I stayed up talking to her about her plans after she arrived in Amman. I gave her some clothes to take with her and she was packing the only bag she had. She was too excited to sleep.'
Two men ran from their homes to help. They rushed Leila to hospital and a passing taxi took the other two. But Leila died at 3.20pm, despite several operations to save her. As she lay in her own hospital bed receiving treatment, Mariam said that she heard someone saying that Leila had been shot in the head. But there were other mutterings that were clearly audible. 'I could hear people talking on the corridors and the only thing that they had to say was that Leila was wrong for defending her daughter's mistakes and that her death was God's punishment.
'In that minute I just had complete hatred in my heart for those who had killed her.'
Police said the incident was a sectarian attack and that there was nothing to link Leila's death to her family.
Read that again. This is the same police that let the stomping murderer go. Do we need to believe anything they say?
'Her ex-husband was not in Basra when it happened. We found out he was visiting relatives in Nassiriya with his two sons,' said Hassan Alaa, a senior officer at the local police station in Basra. 'We believe the target was the women activists, rather than Mrs Hussein, and that she was unlucky to be in that place at that time.'
These men should rot in hell.
It is plausible. Campaigners for women's' rights are not acceptable to many sections of Iraqi society, especially in Basra where militias have partial control in some districts and impose strict laws on locals, including what clothing they should wear and what religious practice they should follow.
Dhimmi media happy to assist the jihad!
Since February 2006, two other activists from the same women's organisation have been killed in the city. One of them was reportedly raped before being shot. The other, the only man working for the non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a father of five who was responsible for the organisation's finances, was shot five months ago.
There could be many with a grudge against such organisations. However, Mariam believes Leila was targeted, pointing out she had been hit by three bullets. 'When we were shot, they focused on Leila, not us,' she said.
Since the attack the NGO has stopped its work in Basra. 'We daren't answer the phones because we have received so many threats since we gave our support to Leila's case,' said Mariam. 'Most of our members are preparing to leave the city and even Iraq if they can raise the money.'
Iraq - the new democracy. Shining beacon of death.
A single mother since her husband was killed for refusing to join a militia, she too intends to move when she can. Faisal, who also survived her injuries, is still suffering post-surgical infection. She preferred not to speak, but her mother, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'My daughter is very shocked at what happened, and my two grandsons can't stop crying since they saw her in hospital.'
Leila's burial was arranged within hours of her death by the husband of one of her cousins and Mariam's father.
The Observer visited Rand's father and two brothers at their Basra home, but they refused to talk beyond Hassan proclaiming his father's innocence. When asked if he would be visiting his mother's grave, he shrugged: 'Maybe in the future.'
Leila was an orphan, raised by an uncle who died in the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. Hamida Alaa, 68, a friend of the uncle, said: 'The poor woman was killed and now her name and history is buried with her. No one wants to speak about it. She is just one more woman killed in our country who has already been forgotten by the local society.'
In the last days of her life, Leila was suffering from the pressure of having gone against her husband. 'She was sleeping with the help of sedatives,' said Mariam. 'She would wake up at night with terrible nightmares, even dreaming of being suffocated as her daughter was. She had been threatened so many times and that's why she was so scared. Her indignation over Rand's death is what led her to her own coffin. Their history ends here. But Leila was a hero. A woman who was strong enough to say no to Iraqi men's bad attitudes. Sadly most Iraqi women do not have the same strength and they will stay in their homes.'
Leila is my hero.
Mariam has moved out of her home. But within hours of speaking to The Observer a close friend went to her new address to deliver a message that had been left for her at her front door. It read: 'Death to betrayers of Islam who don't deserve God's forgiveness. Speaking less you will live more.' She believes it was sent by Leila's killers.
'They want this story to be buried with Leila,' she said. 'But I cannot close my eyes to all this.'
You can read more about this story from this link:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/06/mother-of-honor.html
Saturday, May 29, 2010
I'm A Woman!
After 4 months on our first post...
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Let me introduce myself.I am a woman.
Not a secondary supplement to but the complimentary counterpart to a man. I too have dreams and desires and ambitions. I too am an individual and a part of a family. And I too can know joy and happiness and love and know pain and loneliness and sorrow.
As I sit in my family-imposed imprisonment in the middle-east, confined by an uncompromising, outdate culture I yearn for a voice. More than that, I long for that voice to be heard.
I am alone.
Not literally. My family is here, my “flesh and blood”, yet they deny me my inherent right as a human being to choose my own path, my own life because I am a woman. They deny me the fundamental right to define my own boundaries, to pursue my own dreams, to love whom my heart loves. They tell me I will ruin their reputation, I can’t possibly make such a decision; I haven’t the wherewithal to know what I want.
I am just a woman.
I am just a voice in solitude, locked behind doors, refused to feel the sun on my face. Yes, again I am being figurative, but it is still the truth. Once, I smiled. Once I felt the warmth of the sun upon my face. Now I know only the chill of loneliness and the spark of a want to speak. No, I’m still hiding my emotions; it’s such a bad habit.
Within my chest is a raging fire for the need to SCREAM!
What makes a man more capable of living his life better than me? What makes his life more valuable than my own? I too am educated. I too have a heart, a soul, a mind that can feel and think and reason. In my culture a man can’t even take care of himself. He depends upon women to cook and clean and do all the little things so he doesn’t have to. A man is often lazy and does maybe half the work of a woman. What makes him better? A man can’t even have children. In fact in this modern age of miraculous medicine it could be argued that we don’t need men at all. It would be a far less violent world, that’s for sure.
But I must confess it is not only men who have stolen my freedom, who have incarcerated my spirit just as they have denied my corporeal freedom. The women of the middle-east are just as culpable as the men. To allow such behavior, to accept the role of servitude only encourages such barbaric, outdated customs. Yes, there was a time when this was the accepted norm around the globe but that time has come and gone. We hear how bad the West is, how bad their women are, even Eastern women condemn them as sinful or immoral, yet who are we to judge? Who are we to devalue our own sisters in the world, whose mothers and grandmothers fought for their own freedoms over the years, decades, centuries?
I am a woman and I have plans, dreams, expectations.
I want to feel the wind of possibility whip about me and carry my voice far and away. I want to accept responsibility. No, I’m being demure again. I long to embrace my own decisions, right or wrong, as mine!
I am a woman. I can bring life into this world yet I must ask to go outdoors, must be accompanied, must obey archaic laws else risk being rebuked, beaten…or worse. Death is something that eastern women are all too familiar with; the threat, the execution…
But I feel I am already dead. I breathe, I eat, I wake to go to work, but am just the walking dead. This is not living.
I am a woman and I WANT TO LIVE.
Yes, most of my day I know broken-hearted solitude.
But I know I am not alone.
We are women, and WE HAVE A VOICE. We have waited long enough for the men of our culture, for our fathers and brothers and husbands to give us our liberty and it is evident that that they will not. They will not listen to the West, they will not accept that we are their equals. They will relent nothing, give nothing.
So I am a woman, and I am no longer asking.
I am a woman and I shall take my freedom.
Because what I understand that the men of my culture do not is that freedom is not free. Freedom does not come without the responsibility to fight for it, to sacrifice, and that it must always be guarded and protected. For some this is too much effort and slinking back to the dark isolation becomes acceptable because it is safe and familiar.
But I am a woman and I AM FIERCE!
I am a woman and THIS IS MY VOICE!
My sisters in the middle-east;
WILL YOU HAVE A VOICE TOO?
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I'm a woman who wants to breathe, I'm a woman who wants to achieve dreams, I'm a woman who wants to smell the freedom, I'm a woman who wants to fight for women's rights as a part of human rights, I'm an eastern-western composition...I'm a woman!
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