By Rod Nordland and Babak Dehghanpisheh
Newsweek
April 2, 2007 issue - Describing Jalal Mustafa to a reporter, the first thing his family mentions is "that long love story of his." The young mechanic's dream was to wed his fiancée, Laila, and "have as many kids as they could." But running a small auto-repair shop, it took Mustafa a long time to save up enough for the wedding, let alone a house. On Feb. 4, he finally went to the courthouse to apply for a marriage license. As he was walking through the gates, a car pulled up next to the building. Before the vehicle came to a full stop, the driver detonated a suicide bomb. Four bystanders died, including Mustafa: burned over much of his body, a piece of shrapnel lodged in his head. The bombing didn't even make the news; it was an ordinary day in Baghdad.
For each U.S. service member killed in Iraq, at least 20 Iraqis die violently. Feb. 4 was no exception. That day in Baghdad, roadside bombs killed four Iraqi policemen in one incident and two soldiers in another, and an Army colonel lost his life to assassins in the southern suburbs. But most of the day's 81 victims of violent deaths—about the usual daily toll this past winter—were civilians like Mustafa, the softest of soft targets. Forty-two of them were gunned down execution style, many of their corpses bearing signs of torture: hallmarks of Shia death squads. Most of the other deaths appeared to be the work of Sunni and Al Qaeda extremists. NEWSWEEK talked to the families of four of the Feb. 4 victims. Among them were a street vendor, a former TV journalist and a truck-parts dealer. Two were Shia, and two were Sunni. And in each case their families lost not only loved ones but breadwinners. None of their killers has been identified:
Jawad Jasem, 44, was serving a customer at his pushcart outside the courthouse when the bomb exploded. The son of a poor Shia farmer, Jasem had wanted to be an engineer. When he was 18, family friends got him into the Air Force, where he earned good money working on jets—until the Army, desperate for infantrymen in the war with Iran, sent him to the front. He was wounded four times. He was not allowed to return to civilian life after the war, even though he had a wife and five children. "He used to tell everyone that the last day of his military service would be the happiest day of his life," says his younger brother, Kareem, a shopkeeper. "He said he'd celebrate with a great party in which he would make a feast for the entire city."
It didn't turn out that way. His last day of duty was April 8, 2003, when U.S. troops entered Baghdad. Jawad was among thousands of Iraqi soldiers who stripped off their uniforms and fled.
He started over, buying his pushcart and setting up in front of the courthouse. He built a good business. It was a predominantly Shia neighborhood, but the bomber killed members of both sects indiscriminately. "Evil has no eyes," says Kareem Jasem. "Jawad's shop had turned into just a big hole ... and his body was smashed into a wall."
Abdul Salam, 47, was a pious Sunni who believed in sectarian harmony. The father of six, he had refused to join Saddam's Army, and worked instead in defense factories. After the invasion, he started a truck-parts business; he hired two Shia apprentices and set up shop in Al Yousifiyah, a mostly Sunni suburb. Driving home from work one night with his two assistants, Salam stopped at a police checkpoint. A van full of gunmen pulled up and abducted all three. Shia friends tried to intercede for Salam at the local Mahdi Army office, but on Feb. 4, Salam's corpse was found dumped in a field a few miles from his home, shot repeatedly in the head and chest. His Shia apprentices were freed. "He was beloved by his friends, colleagues and all of his neighbors, most of them Shiites," says Salam's brother, Naser Zaidan. "He used to say Islam is the unifier of Iraqis."
For Suhad Shakir, 36, her new job was a dream come true. She had always wanted to work with Americans, and she loved helping people. Last September she quit her post as a journalist at state-owned TV and jumped at an opening with the Iraqi Assistance Center, a Coalition-run office in the Green Zone that works with U.S. and Iraqi agencies to provide social services. It seemed safer than reporting, and it paid better.
On Feb. 4 she was on her way to work, waiting in the queue at a checkpoint near an entrance to the Green Zone which is often targeted by suicide bombers. Shakir was in the slow lane, for Iraqi cars that are subject to careful searches. A convoy of armored vehicles came roaring up and got stuck at the checkpoint. One of the bodyguards in the first vehicle threw a bottle of water at the driver in front of Shakir to signal him to move. The driver panicked and backed into Shakir's car. She tried to get out of the way but backed into the car behind her. Someone aboard the fourth vehicle in the convoy, seeing Shakir's sudden move, opened fire, hitting her once. The vehicle slowed and a goateed Westerner in khaki leaned out his window and shot her again in the face at close range. Then the convoy raced off into the Green Zone.
Iraqi cops think Shakir's killer mistook her for a suicide bomber, but they say they're continuing to investigate. "It is very important I know why she is killed and who killed her," said Shakir's mother, Salima Kadhim, dressed in black a month after her daughter's death. Like many Iraqis, she still waits.
With Salih Mehdi and Ahmed Obeidi in Baghdad
26 March 2007
05 March 2007
Statement at CSW by the Middle East Caucus
Speaker: Amal Mahmoud FayedWhen: Friday, March 2, 2007What time: 3:00 – 6:00 pm, General DebateOrganization: Middle East Caucus (Amal Fayed herself is from the Forum for Women in Development and Karama Arab Group for Ending Violence Against Women)
Topic: Arab Women's Suffering Under Armed Conflict, Economic and Political Situation Threatening Women's Dignity
We are the women in the Middle East Caucus participating in the CSW sessions from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen.
We consider women's dignity to be the essence of a woman's right and a woman's life. In Arabic, this word for dignity is 'Karama.' We believe the elimination of discrimination and violence against women is a reclamation of dignity and a defense of human rights.
We urge the formal government delegations at CSW to place a greater focus on prevention of violence against women and protection for children from violence, and conflict resolution in the Middle East region. War brings the maximum escalation of violence into human lives and the greatest violations of human rights and women's rights. War brings obstacles that affront the development process, which enacts a double form of violence against women: 1) traditional practices based on cultural heritage, 2) practices of the occupation force against local women, including rape, prostitution, economic exploitation, and violence.
Women from Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, and Somalia are experiencing the height of victimization by armed forces at war in their countries. Yet there exists no international convention that explicitly protects the rights and safety of women within armed conflict zones, and their survival. Neither is there questioning of those responsible for this military and gender violence in our region.
The cost of war to women and its exponential harm is our concern. To eradicate the roots of war in our region, we must also transform the abuse of global media which stereotypes Arab women as passive, oppressed, and incapable of self-determined rights and liberties. These stereotypes in the global media are used to market so-called democratic reforms as a justification for military action. The democratic reforms do not arrive, instead women and their families suffer increasing injustice and loss of human rights living under armed conflict.
We ask the CSW and UN to focus their efforts to solve the special problems for women and girl refugees, to protect them from the violence and discrimination they face in escaping war and in the countries to which they flee. The resources for UN ANWRA should be increased to offer necessary services and additional program to serve and protect women and girl refugees. They live as some of the most vulnerable and unprotected people in the world.
The World Bank policies such as structural adjustment and privatization in the Middle East are dramatically increasing poverty and economic deprivation and violence, with an exaggerated burden falling on women and their children. Economic crisis makes women more vulnerable and exposes them to many forms of abuse, especially sexual abuse. We demand review of all of these economic policies and insist on a special convention on the economic empowerment of women and girls.
We also take into consideration on our region the position of immigrant women, who suffer double dimensions of violence and violations of their rights: economic violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and abuse of their civil status and rights in the host country where they have immigrated, as well as male domination and forms of discrimination suffered in their country of origin. We urge a Special Protocol to protect immigrant women in whatever nations they live, and to ensure their rights despite any disparity between the laws of their country of residence and the laws of their country of citizenship/origin.
Violence against women is a crime against all humans. UN member nations and governments must protect all women, and punish those responsible for committing the violence. We want to see the Declaration to End All Forms of Violence Against Women transformed into a UN Convention banning gender violence, to which governments sign their commitment and monitor compliance in their countries.
Because of the expansion of all forms of violence against women and girls in the Middle East in the private sphere, public sphere, or by states, we request a policymaking process with outcomes that are more concrete, more committed, and more enforced with laws, programs, and resources to integrate gender perspective in all institutions, agencies, and governments.
We urge the private sector to implement international criteria and standards for ethics to protect women and girls from exploitation and abuse in workplaces, employment, services, and industry.
We urge the partners in the 1999 UN Global Compact on Corporate Leadership in the World Economy, which upholds social responsibility and human rights principles across the private sector, to implement and enforce these international ethics and criteria that protect women and girls from economic abuses. We encourage national authorities and local governments to impose penalties on any private sector entity that commits violence or discrimination against women and girls.
In the Middle East and around the world, we regard the civil society organizations as essential partners with national and local government bodies in their strategic decisionmaking and policymaking to eliminate violence and discrimination against women and girls. This partnership will ensure that the national and local governments will have strategies that are more diverse, representative, and stronger in their protection of women and girls.
We support the effort for UN reform of the gender architecture to achieve equality and to end all forms of discrimination against women in the UN structure. We call on all UN agencies to support, implement, and integrate the work of UNIFEM, OSAGI, and the Division for the Advancement of Women, and to significantly increase their budgets.
We recommend that UN agencies and member nations invest a greater commitment and more resources to offer shelters and welfare for women victims of violence, to establish legal procedures that protect these shelters and those who work at them, defending women from violence.
We urge UN member nations to enact equality for women and men in both word and deed, enforcing it in the written laws and in the application of the laws, especially in criminal law which has biases that favor men and allow the trafficking and abuses of women.
We need to raise the legal age for marriage to 18 years in all countries, for women and for men, in order to stop violence and forced marriage of girls underage.
It is a necessity to ensure girls' rights to have their mother's citizenship, especially to ensure the mother's right to pass her nationality to her children. We highlight especially the Palestinian women's suffering from Israel Family Unification Law, which denies citizenship and permanent residency to any Palestinian from the Occupied Palestinian Territories who marries an Israeli citizen, a right available to spouses from every other country in the world.
The Secretary General's report on Violence Against Women should follow up with more attention to specific populations of women and girls who suffer double dimensions of discrimination and violence: on one level as women and then again as women with disabilities, girls in armed conflict, women detained or in prison, women suffering mental health disabilities.
http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/press/release/0703011
Topic: Arab Women's Suffering Under Armed Conflict, Economic and Political Situation Threatening Women's Dignity
We are the women in the Middle East Caucus participating in the CSW sessions from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen.
We consider women's dignity to be the essence of a woman's right and a woman's life. In Arabic, this word for dignity is 'Karama.' We believe the elimination of discrimination and violence against women is a reclamation of dignity and a defense of human rights.
We urge the formal government delegations at CSW to place a greater focus on prevention of violence against women and protection for children from violence, and conflict resolution in the Middle East region. War brings the maximum escalation of violence into human lives and the greatest violations of human rights and women's rights. War brings obstacles that affront the development process, which enacts a double form of violence against women: 1) traditional practices based on cultural heritage, 2) practices of the occupation force against local women, including rape, prostitution, economic exploitation, and violence.
Women from Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, and Somalia are experiencing the height of victimization by armed forces at war in their countries. Yet there exists no international convention that explicitly protects the rights and safety of women within armed conflict zones, and their survival. Neither is there questioning of those responsible for this military and gender violence in our region.
The cost of war to women and its exponential harm is our concern. To eradicate the roots of war in our region, we must also transform the abuse of global media which stereotypes Arab women as passive, oppressed, and incapable of self-determined rights and liberties. These stereotypes in the global media are used to market so-called democratic reforms as a justification for military action. The democratic reforms do not arrive, instead women and their families suffer increasing injustice and loss of human rights living under armed conflict.
We ask the CSW and UN to focus their efforts to solve the special problems for women and girl refugees, to protect them from the violence and discrimination they face in escaping war and in the countries to which they flee. The resources for UN ANWRA should be increased to offer necessary services and additional program to serve and protect women and girl refugees. They live as some of the most vulnerable and unprotected people in the world.
The World Bank policies such as structural adjustment and privatization in the Middle East are dramatically increasing poverty and economic deprivation and violence, with an exaggerated burden falling on women and their children. Economic crisis makes women more vulnerable and exposes them to many forms of abuse, especially sexual abuse. We demand review of all of these economic policies and insist on a special convention on the economic empowerment of women and girls.
We also take into consideration on our region the position of immigrant women, who suffer double dimensions of violence and violations of their rights: economic violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and abuse of their civil status and rights in the host country where they have immigrated, as well as male domination and forms of discrimination suffered in their country of origin. We urge a Special Protocol to protect immigrant women in whatever nations they live, and to ensure their rights despite any disparity between the laws of their country of residence and the laws of their country of citizenship/origin.
Violence against women is a crime against all humans. UN member nations and governments must protect all women, and punish those responsible for committing the violence. We want to see the Declaration to End All Forms of Violence Against Women transformed into a UN Convention banning gender violence, to which governments sign their commitment and monitor compliance in their countries.
Because of the expansion of all forms of violence against women and girls in the Middle East in the private sphere, public sphere, or by states, we request a policymaking process with outcomes that are more concrete, more committed, and more enforced with laws, programs, and resources to integrate gender perspective in all institutions, agencies, and governments.
We urge the private sector to implement international criteria and standards for ethics to protect women and girls from exploitation and abuse in workplaces, employment, services, and industry.
We urge the partners in the 1999 UN Global Compact on Corporate Leadership in the World Economy, which upholds social responsibility and human rights principles across the private sector, to implement and enforce these international ethics and criteria that protect women and girls from economic abuses. We encourage national authorities and local governments to impose penalties on any private sector entity that commits violence or discrimination against women and girls.
In the Middle East and around the world, we regard the civil society organizations as essential partners with national and local government bodies in their strategic decisionmaking and policymaking to eliminate violence and discrimination against women and girls. This partnership will ensure that the national and local governments will have strategies that are more diverse, representative, and stronger in their protection of women and girls.
We support the effort for UN reform of the gender architecture to achieve equality and to end all forms of discrimination against women in the UN structure. We call on all UN agencies to support, implement, and integrate the work of UNIFEM, OSAGI, and the Division for the Advancement of Women, and to significantly increase their budgets.
We recommend that UN agencies and member nations invest a greater commitment and more resources to offer shelters and welfare for women victims of violence, to establish legal procedures that protect these shelters and those who work at them, defending women from violence.
We urge UN member nations to enact equality for women and men in both word and deed, enforcing it in the written laws and in the application of the laws, especially in criminal law which has biases that favor men and allow the trafficking and abuses of women.
We need to raise the legal age for marriage to 18 years in all countries, for women and for men, in order to stop violence and forced marriage of girls underage.
It is a necessity to ensure girls' rights to have their mother's citizenship, especially to ensure the mother's right to pass her nationality to her children. We highlight especially the Palestinian women's suffering from Israel Family Unification Law, which denies citizenship and permanent residency to any Palestinian from the Occupied Palestinian Territories who marries an Israeli citizen, a right available to spouses from every other country in the world.
The Secretary General's report on Violence Against Women should follow up with more attention to specific populations of women and girls who suffer double dimensions of discrimination and violence: on one level as women and then again as women with disabilities, girls in armed conflict, women detained or in prison, women suffering mental health disabilities.
http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/press/release/0703011
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