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NEWS & LETTERS, April 2004Support Iraqi womenNew York--At a demonstration at the Federal Building here on March 3, we expressed solidarity with Iraqi women’s struggles--against the U.S. occupation, against the U.S. alliance with political Islamists, and for women’s equality and freedom. We celebrated the recent defeat in the Iraqi Governing Council of Resolution 137, which would have destroyed what rights Iraqi women have at least on paper (see March N&L). The rally was also in support of Yanar Mohammed of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), who has received two serious death threats. OWFI has been in the leadership of the fight against political Islamist movements that seek to end secular rights and impose Shar’ia (religious) law. The New York demonstration was endorsed by several feminist and political organizations, including News and Letters Committees. OWFI supporters from Canada attended. One of them, Khayal Ibrahim, spoke about the impact on women of the two U.S. wars on Iraq, the sanctions, and Saddam Hussein, who weakened women’s rights. The 2003 war, she said, destroyed civil society and unleashed reactionary religious movements against women. "We are against the U.S. occupation," she explained, "not out of nationalism, but because the U.S. is creating a dark future for us." She also warned about the threat to establish a Shar’ia court in Canada, which was recently demanded by political Islamists in Toronto. She can be contacted at HOMAWPI@rogers.com. The small turnout shows that the U.S. Left continues to ignore this issue instead of putting it in the forefront of the anti-occupation movement. Anne Jaclard of News and Letters Committees warned that Iraqi women face a future like Afghanistan’s, which just adopted an "Islamic" constitution. She urged us to challenge the Left to solidarize with women and working people’s fights for liberation in Iraq, instead of limiting the movement to anti-U.S. imperialism. --Participants |
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