Aso Kamal, a 42-year-old British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner, says that from 1991 to 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of ‘honour’ or committed suicide in the three Kurdish provinces.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its November report that in October alone four women were murdered - three in the northern West Bank and one in Gaza. According to experts and human rights organizations about 60 cases, thought to be only the tip of the iceberg, were reported in recent years in Gaza and the West Bank. Few of the perpetrators were tried before courts, and those who were were let off lightly. Article 340 of Jordanian Penal Law No. 16 (1960), also in force in the West Bank, provides that any man who kills or attacks his wife or any of his female relatives if they are committing adultery is exempt from punishment. "Very seldom are the killers arrested or charged, and when they are the maximum sentence that can be imposed is six months. And that is when the victims are found to be innocent of adultery," Mashour Basisy, general director of planning at the PA's Ministry for Women's Affairs, told the Middle East Times.
BAGHDAD - Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday. Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.
"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. "Those who are behind these atrocities are organized gangs who work under cover of religion, pretending to spread the instructions of Islam, but they are far from this religion," Khalaf said.
Throughout Iraq, many women wear a headscarf and others wear a full face veil although secular women are often unveiled. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rise of a Shiite-dominated government, armed men in some parts of the country have sometimes forced women to cover their heads or face punishment. In some areas of the heavily Shiite south, even Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves. Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was known for its mixed population and night life. Now, in some areas, red graffiti threatens any woman who wears makeup and appears with her hair uncovered: "Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death."
Khalaf said bodies have been found in garbage dumps with bullet holes, decapitated or otherwise mutilated with a sheet of paper nearby saying, "she was killed for adultery," or "she was killed for violating Islamic teachings." In September, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found, he said. A total of 40 deaths were reported this year. "We believe the number of murdered women is much higher, as cases go unreported by their families who fear reprisal from extremists," he said. Harith al-Ithari, who works in the Basra offices of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said the conservative religious movement opposed the killings and blamed "gangs with foreign support to destabilize the city." "There is a concrete religious principle that says that wearing makeup and forgoing the hijab (headscarf) in public is a sin," al-Ithari said. "But killing them is a sin bigger than this one."
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, AP
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Release human rights activists in Syria and Omar Al-Ghoul in Gaza!
Palestinian supporters of Omar Al-Ghoul, an advisor to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad protest against his detention by Hamas forces in Gaza City, Friday, Dec. 14, 2007. Armed gunmen burst into the home of the top Fatah official in Gaza early Friday and kidnapped him. AP Photo/By Adel Hana
Release them at ones or you be condemned! Talking about your rights and "who´s important" Fascists!
Measure that would allow courts to accuse journalists of "vague offenses"
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Lawmakers in Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region approved a measure that would allow courts to accuse journalists of "vague offenses" relating to terrorism or disturbing security, drawing protests Friday from Kurdish journalists and an international media advocate.
Friday, December 14, 2007
The mass grave found Dec. 2 near Lake Tharthar was one of 12 unearthed since May
BAGHDAD - The red-and-white identification card was faded. But the name was legible and the picture of the man with the necktie and tidy mustache was clear. Rashid Aboud Awad, who worked in a medicine storage facility in Ramadi, was last seen alive by his wife and children when he went off swimming in nearby Lake Tharthar, once Saddam Hussein's favorite fishing spot and more recently part of an al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold west of Baghdad.
Awad's remains were discovered last week in a mass grave along with more than 20 other bodies near the manmade lake surrounded by rugged and sun-bleached scrubland. More than 150 bodies have been unearthed in recent months from mass graves around Lake Tharthar. It's seen as the grisly legacy of al-Qaida control of Iraq's western deserts until being ousted early this year in an uprising by local tribes. The revolt was spurred — at least in part — by their claims of extremist brutalities.
Each mass grave uncovered around Tharthar and elsewhere in Iraq — so far at least 12 burial sites — appears to offer more evidence of the fate of Iraqis who challenged al-Qaida and its backers. Al-Qaida is not alone in being accused of atrocities following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Shiite death squads and others have taken thousands of lives in Iraq's sectarian meltdown. But the mass graves now turning up in former al-Qaida territory help explain the decision by Sunni tribal leaders to fight back. U.S. and Iraqi commanders say the groundswell helped drive al-Qaida from the belts around Baghdad and forced extremists to hunt for new havens in northern Iraq.
Awad's Health Ministry ID card, which expired April 1, was a rare solid lead to confirm the name of a body found in a mass grave. His relatives recognized pieces of his clothing, a hospital official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. It was unclear when Awad died, but experts said it appeared to be less than a year ago — suggesting he was killed early in 2007. Of the 23 sets of remains in the grave, authorities were able to identify only Awad and two others. That's typical in Iraq, where officials usually lack such forensics aids as DNA and dental records. In the vast majority of missing person cases in Iraq, families are left guessing forever about what happened. Whenever she hears that a mass grave has been found, Madiha al-Ani, a 75-year-old resident of Fallujah, dispatches relatives to the hospital to search for signs of her son who vanished en route home from Baghdad in February 2006. She always hopes they will come back empty-handed so she can maintain the belief that he's alive. "I am an old woman and Ali was my only son. I have the feeling that someday he will return to his mother," she said.
Sajad Majid, a 16-year-old who lives south of Baghdad near Youssifiyah, said his uncle disappeared more than two years ago while returning home from his barber shop. Five months later, Majid's father went to investigate a report that a mass grave in nearby Radwaniyah could contain his uncle's remains — only to be kidnapped himself. "I have not seen them since," the teenager said. "We have lost any hope of finding them alive. The only thing we can hope for is to bury the bodies."
Iraqi security forces have taken advantage of recent security gains to step up patrols in areas previously considered no-go zones, leading to the discovery of bodies near Lake Tharthar as well as in the volatile Diyala province and the Baghdad neighborhoods of Dora and Fadhl. The mass grave found Dec. 2 near Lake Tharthar was one of 12 unearthed since May containing the remains of at least 287 people, according to an Associated Press tally based on police and U.S. military reports. Six of the graves containing the remains of more than half of the victims, 157, were found in the vicinity of Lake Tharthar, the AP tally showed.
"Fishermen and farmers have started to inform the police about bodies, then the police transfer them to the Fallujah General Hospital," the hospital official said. Sixteen corpses — 12 decapitated and four shot in the head — were found Wednesday by Iraqi soldiers investigating a foul smell while on patrol in a lush grove of date palms and fruit trees near the Diyala province city of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said. Still, the numbers of bodies found are a fraction of the estimated 375,000 Iraqis who have vanished as a result of checkpoint kidnappings and other violence by Sunni and Shiite extremists. And even when bodies are found, most are in an advanced state of decomposition.
An official at the Muqdadiyah morgue, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, said the facility has no modern technology to identify the remains found Wednesday. He said the bodies were decomposed beyond recognition. Instead, authorities take pictures of each body and assign it a serial number in case relatives come forward. The International Committee of the Red Cross is providing training and equipment for body identification, but it's a slow process. Dr. Maximo Duque, a forensics adviser for the ICRC, said the daily hazards and inconveniences of life in Iraq complicate the training. "It is not easy," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We can help in providing the material but sometimes they don't have the electricity."
Regional hospitals often lack X-ray machines and dental records, which are commonly used for identification in developed countries. The country has only one DNA testing facility, in Baghdad. "Many bodies found are in an advanced stage of decomposition and sometimes we have only bones," said Adel Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector general. "Another problem is that we do not have DNA records, so even if we do the DNA testing, there is nothing to match it with."
Muhsin expressed hope authorities could take advantage of a relative lull in violence to make progress. "In the past, we were busy with the bodies from the explosions and violence and we did not have the time to use this technology in order to identify the bodies in the morgue. Now, we have a little freedom to do so," he said. In the meantime, most health care workers rely on rudimentary detective work. They take pictures for relatives and friends to examine and pick through bags of rotting clothes and human remains for recognizable items. At the grave near Lake Tharthar where Awad's remains were found, Iraqi soldiers also discovered the bodies of two beheaded policemen from the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi who also had ID cards. Awad's family told hospital officials that he didn't have any friends who were policemen; therefore, it was determined that the victims in the mass grave were from different places. Authorities said most of the dead were probably travelers going to Jordan or Syria.
The remains of the 20 unidentified victims from the grave were photographed and buried in a cemetery near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Each of their graves was marked only by a number.
By KIM GAMEL, AP, Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and AP researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.
Awad's remains were discovered last week in a mass grave along with more than 20 other bodies near the manmade lake surrounded by rugged and sun-bleached scrubland. More than 150 bodies have been unearthed in recent months from mass graves around Lake Tharthar. It's seen as the grisly legacy of al-Qaida control of Iraq's western deserts until being ousted early this year in an uprising by local tribes. The revolt was spurred — at least in part — by their claims of extremist brutalities.
Each mass grave uncovered around Tharthar and elsewhere in Iraq — so far at least 12 burial sites — appears to offer more evidence of the fate of Iraqis who challenged al-Qaida and its backers. Al-Qaida is not alone in being accused of atrocities following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Shiite death squads and others have taken thousands of lives in Iraq's sectarian meltdown. But the mass graves now turning up in former al-Qaida territory help explain the decision by Sunni tribal leaders to fight back. U.S. and Iraqi commanders say the groundswell helped drive al-Qaida from the belts around Baghdad and forced extremists to hunt for new havens in northern Iraq.
Awad's Health Ministry ID card, which expired April 1, was a rare solid lead to confirm the name of a body found in a mass grave. His relatives recognized pieces of his clothing, a hospital official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. It was unclear when Awad died, but experts said it appeared to be less than a year ago — suggesting he was killed early in 2007. Of the 23 sets of remains in the grave, authorities were able to identify only Awad and two others. That's typical in Iraq, where officials usually lack such forensics aids as DNA and dental records. In the vast majority of missing person cases in Iraq, families are left guessing forever about what happened. Whenever she hears that a mass grave has been found, Madiha al-Ani, a 75-year-old resident of Fallujah, dispatches relatives to the hospital to search for signs of her son who vanished en route home from Baghdad in February 2006. She always hopes they will come back empty-handed so she can maintain the belief that he's alive. "I am an old woman and Ali was my only son. I have the feeling that someday he will return to his mother," she said.
Sajad Majid, a 16-year-old who lives south of Baghdad near Youssifiyah, said his uncle disappeared more than two years ago while returning home from his barber shop. Five months later, Majid's father went to investigate a report that a mass grave in nearby Radwaniyah could contain his uncle's remains — only to be kidnapped himself. "I have not seen them since," the teenager said. "We have lost any hope of finding them alive. The only thing we can hope for is to bury the bodies."
Iraqi security forces have taken advantage of recent security gains to step up patrols in areas previously considered no-go zones, leading to the discovery of bodies near Lake Tharthar as well as in the volatile Diyala province and the Baghdad neighborhoods of Dora and Fadhl. The mass grave found Dec. 2 near Lake Tharthar was one of 12 unearthed since May containing the remains of at least 287 people, according to an Associated Press tally based on police and U.S. military reports. Six of the graves containing the remains of more than half of the victims, 157, were found in the vicinity of Lake Tharthar, the AP tally showed.
"Fishermen and farmers have started to inform the police about bodies, then the police transfer them to the Fallujah General Hospital," the hospital official said. Sixteen corpses — 12 decapitated and four shot in the head — were found Wednesday by Iraqi soldiers investigating a foul smell while on patrol in a lush grove of date palms and fruit trees near the Diyala province city of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said. Still, the numbers of bodies found are a fraction of the estimated 375,000 Iraqis who have vanished as a result of checkpoint kidnappings and other violence by Sunni and Shiite extremists. And even when bodies are found, most are in an advanced state of decomposition.
An official at the Muqdadiyah morgue, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, said the facility has no modern technology to identify the remains found Wednesday. He said the bodies were decomposed beyond recognition. Instead, authorities take pictures of each body and assign it a serial number in case relatives come forward. The International Committee of the Red Cross is providing training and equipment for body identification, but it's a slow process. Dr. Maximo Duque, a forensics adviser for the ICRC, said the daily hazards and inconveniences of life in Iraq complicate the training. "It is not easy," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We can help in providing the material but sometimes they don't have the electricity."
Regional hospitals often lack X-ray machines and dental records, which are commonly used for identification in developed countries. The country has only one DNA testing facility, in Baghdad. "Many bodies found are in an advanced stage of decomposition and sometimes we have only bones," said Adel Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector general. "Another problem is that we do not have DNA records, so even if we do the DNA testing, there is nothing to match it with."
Muhsin expressed hope authorities could take advantage of a relative lull in violence to make progress. "In the past, we were busy with the bodies from the explosions and violence and we did not have the time to use this technology in order to identify the bodies in the morgue. Now, we have a little freedom to do so," he said. In the meantime, most health care workers rely on rudimentary detective work. They take pictures for relatives and friends to examine and pick through bags of rotting clothes and human remains for recognizable items. At the grave near Lake Tharthar where Awad's remains were found, Iraqi soldiers also discovered the bodies of two beheaded policemen from the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi who also had ID cards. Awad's family told hospital officials that he didn't have any friends who were policemen; therefore, it was determined that the victims in the mass grave were from different places. Authorities said most of the dead were probably travelers going to Jordan or Syria.
The remains of the 20 unidentified victims from the grave were photographed and buried in a cemetery near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Each of their graves was marked only by a number.
By KIM GAMEL, AP, Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and AP researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.
Housing Ministry bureaucrats
Government officials: Har Homa row sparked by 'two bureaucrats'
Two Housing Ministry bureaucrats unintentionaly set off a crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority - as well as international condemnation of Israel - when they signed a tender last week for the construction of 307 housing units in East Jerusalem's Har Homa neighborhood, Israeli officials said Thursday.
"This affair has sabotaged negotiations and cast a shadow on the international donor states meeting next week," a senior government official told Haaretz. "Because of a miserably timed, rash bureaucratic decision, we must prove anew that we are serious." O fficials said that civil servants Sarah Zimmerman and Dubi Gal, who had approved the tender, had no idea it would provoke such a row. "In past years, Zimmerman was even accused of delaying issuing of construction permits," a Ministry of Housing and Construction official said. "As far as they were concerned, it was just another tender." Since the crisis began last week, Israel has been condemned by the U.S., UN and EU for okaying the plan to build in East Jerusalem, construction Palestinians see as undermining their goal of turning that part of the city into the future capital of a Palestinian state.
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz
Two Housing Ministry bureaucrats unintentionaly set off a crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority - as well as international condemnation of Israel - when they signed a tender last week for the construction of 307 housing units in East Jerusalem's Har Homa neighborhood, Israeli officials said Thursday.
"This affair has sabotaged negotiations and cast a shadow on the international donor states meeting next week," a senior government official told Haaretz. "Because of a miserably timed, rash bureaucratic decision, we must prove anew that we are serious." O fficials said that civil servants Sarah Zimmerman and Dubi Gal, who had approved the tender, had no idea it would provoke such a row. "In past years, Zimmerman was even accused of delaying issuing of construction permits," a Ministry of Housing and Construction official said. "As far as they were concerned, it was just another tender." Since the crisis began last week, Israel has been condemned by the U.S., UN and EU for okaying the plan to build in East Jerusalem, construction Palestinians see as undermining their goal of turning that part of the city into the future capital of a Palestinian state.
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz
An explosion at a funeral procession killed three people and injured at least 30 others in Gaza
An explosion at a funeral procession on Friday killed three people and injured at least 30 others, as hundreds of mourners marched through Gaza City, hospital officials said. The source of the blast was unknown and it was unclear if the device was triggered or set off accidentally.
The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that began Wednesday with mutual recriminations need to be divorced from "current events," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told EU ambassadors at a meeting Thursday. Livni, according to one of the meeting's participants, stressed that both sides started the bilateral negotiation process on the assumption that negotiations needed to take place regardless of the situation on the ground.
She said that Israel made it clear that it would negotiate even though the security situation remained "problematic" and the first stage of the road map had not been implemented, implying that the Palestinians also needed to take a similar position. Various Palestinian officials have called for a boycott of the talks until Israel stops military activity in Gaza or halts building in Har Homa.
Alternatively, they have asked the US to already get involved in the talks and act as a referee. Livni, who was asked by the ambassadors how Har Homa would impact the pace of the negotiations, said the construction there was approved years ago, and that the Palestinian side should not be deterred from continuing negotiations because of a decision that was not made by this government. According to the participant in the meeting, Livni said Israel was aware that it had obligations under the first stage of the road map. The road map calls for a halt of construction in the settlements, including for natural growth.
She said that Israel made it clear that it would negotiate even though the security situation remained "problematic" and the first stage of the road map had not been implemented, implying that the Palestinians also needed to take a similar position. Various Palestinian officials have called for a boycott of the talks until Israel stops military activity in Gaza or halts building in Har Homa.
Alternatively, they have asked the US to already get involved in the talks and act as a referee. Livni, who was asked by the ambassadors how Har Homa would impact the pace of the negotiations, said the construction there was approved years ago, and that the Palestinian side should not be deterred from continuing negotiations because of a decision that was not made by this government. According to the participant in the meeting, Livni said Israel was aware that it had obligations under the first stage of the road map. The road map calls for a halt of construction in the settlements, including for natural growth.
Just as it´s done in Myanmar!
CANBERRA (Reuters) - The death toll from a democracy crackdown ordered by Myanmar's ruling junta was much greater than U.N. estimates and scores of people were still missing, activists just back from the reclusive country said on Friday.
Just as it´s done in Gaza!
GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen capture Fayad adviser and Hamas critic. A senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government was abducted by unknown gunmen in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday, Abbas's Fatah faction said.
A memorial for intellectuals and professionals killed during the 1971 independence war
DHAKA (Reuters) - Thousands of Bangladeshis gathered on Friday at a memorial for intellectuals and professionals killed during the 1971 independence war amid demands for punishment of "war criminals."
Brigadier General Francois al- Hajj
Soldiers carry the coffin of slain Brigadier General Francois al- Hajj at a military hospital during his funeral procession in Beirut December 14, 2007.
Arrested a senior Islamic-Suicide member
IDF troops and the Shin Bet arrested a senior Islamic-Suicide member in Jenin overnight Thursday, Army Radio reported. Abed Barjis was allegedly involved in shooting attacks and is accused of throwing explosive devices at military targets over the last few years. According to the report, the funding for his attacks was made available by a Syrian-based organization.
Saving rain forests..Thank you! We do not use mahogany that have grown for millions of years!
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - All nations must do more to fight climate change, with deep cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at U.N. talks said on Saturday. The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates at the December 3-14 190-nation talks, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.The draft calls on rich countries to consider "quantified national emission limitation and reduction commitments". Meanwhile, developing countries should consider "measureable and reportable national mitigation actions." That is a weaker demand than in the original draft for poor nations to "limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions". Emissions-cutting measures in developing nations could include slowing deforestation.
Thank you.. we are very happy there are measures being taken to save rain forests! It´s the lungs of the earth, making oxygen out of carbon... Without lungs there will be carbon and there will be global warming and climate changes. In fact..The rain forests balance the climate all over this planet in many ways. Rain forests..absorbing rain..Without forests to take care of the carbon there will be to much carbon and global warming. Without rain forests to absorb rain there will be flooding..It´s quite simple..
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=rain+forests&c
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL13733091
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL082493420071208
Thank you.. we are very happy there are measures being taken to save rain forests! It´s the lungs of the earth, making oxygen out of carbon... Without lungs there will be carbon and there will be global warming and climate changes. In fact..The rain forests balance the climate all over this planet in many ways. Rain forests..absorbing rain..Without forests to take care of the carbon there will be to much carbon and global warming. Without rain forests to absorb rain there will be flooding..It´s quite simple..
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=rain+forests&c
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL13733091
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL082493420071208
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