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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2004'Victories for women and death threat on me'Baghdad--For millions of women in Iraq, the verdict has already been given. They are second rate citizens who should be ashamed of their mere existence, and should cover up and be thankful to get what they are allowed. February witnessed the beginnings of a women’s movement in Baghdad. All of this started when the Governing Council (GC) proposed resolution 137 that gives sanction to Islamic Sharia to rule every single detail of the civil law and eventually our lives. It also overwrites modern amendments that came around as a result of the struggles of the Iraqi women's movement. By the second week of January, more than 100 women demonstrated in Al Firdaws Square denouncing this resolution. These women belonged to different organizations. Some of them were affiliated with members of the GC that did not agree with the resolution. Their announcements were clear although quite moderate and timidly touched on the women's issue. Still, this was one of the first pulses to a women's opposition that could not be scared off or oppressed by the Islamic Sultans enthroned on some of the seats of the GC. At a later demonstration, I started my speech with a warning that the times of inequality between women and men cannot continue. Social, economic and especially political inequality cannot be tolerated anymore. Representation is an important issue, but what would 50% representation do for us if the policies were not women friendly. The best example for that is Resolution 137 that exiles a woman back into the dark ages where she has absolutely no rights under the laws of Islamic Sharia. This resolution proves the failure of the Governing Council's accountability in defending the interests of women in Iraq. In fact, it proves them to be the first enemies of women. We should get together and announce our political struggle and solidarity to start a new era--an era of equality for women. I took the chance to demand a secular constitution based upon equality not on dividing lines based on ethnicity, religion and gender. The next day I found in my email inbox an Arabic email with a strange title. I re-read the title many times until I was sure I read right. It said: "Re: Killing Yanar within a few days." In a small paragraph the Army of Sahaba (Jaysh Al-Sahaba) express their dismay of my women’s activism. They decide that I will have to be killed because I am a converted Muslim unless I refrain from doing what I do. I decided to go immediately to the central headquarters of American troops in order to see what they could do for me. I was told that Colonel Brown would be the best person to see. The answer that I received was that I will have to wait. After I expressed how upset I was, they said he has more important things to deal with. I told them my life was important too. I received a second threat a few days ago. This time, the title was: "Assassination of Yanar Mohammed." It is from the same sender of the last threat. He elaborates on exploding me and the women around me, this time, "just the same way they exploded people in Erbil and Baghdad." After staying home for a couple of days, I met around 40 women in a very fruitful meeting. They are bank employees whom the police and the Finance Ministry are harassing in order to do a cover up on the administrative chaos/corruption and failure in changing the old currency to a new one. We organised them into a committee that will be a beginning of a future union that protects them from their exploitative employers. Our OWFI lawyer Faleh Maghtouf is defending the ones that the Iraqi police had put into prison. Their next step will be a demonstration and possibly a strike at a later point. Please tell all the good friends that supported me that I'm doing well and that we just CANNOT quit our fight that easily. We are here to do more and more. --Yanar Mohammed |
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