Dear Ambassador Khalizad, and Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld:
On September 7 and 8, 2006, members of the U.S. military participated
in an aggressive armed raid on the offices of the Iraq Freedom
Congress in Baghdad. During that raid, U.S. military personnel and
others operating with them or at their direction ransacked the
office, destroyed furniture and equipment, and confiscated records
and documents.
The Iraq Freedom Congress is a respected popular civil society
organization that is committed to non-violent methods in support of a
united democratic secular Iraq in which Iraqis can exercise their
sovereignty free of violence, militarism, ethnic and religious
intolerance, and all foreign interference. The IFC includes
participants from across Iraq's civil society, including members from
a number of Iraqi unions, women's organizations, and distinguished
academics and professionals.
This raid is an affront to all those who cherish peace and democracy
for Iraq. It makes a mockery of the stated goal of the United States
to foster and promote democracy and freedom in Iraq.
U.S. Labor Against the War, a network of more than 140 unions, labor
councils, state federations, and other labor organizations with
millions of members vigorously protests this violation of the rights
of Iraqis. We demand that commanding officers and all others
responsible for this outrage against peace, democracy and freedom be
held to account, that a public apology be issued to the IFC, all
records and other property be promptly returned, and compensation be
paid for all damages the IFC suffered.
Democracy will never be established in Iraq at the barrel of a U.S.
gun. Real security for the Iraqis and for the rest of the world can
not be established by military means. We join with the majority of
the people of the U.S., the more than 80% of Iraqis, and 72% of U.S.
troops in Iraq who, when polled, call for the U.S. and all other
foreign troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. All U.S. bases and other
military facilities should be dismantled and abandoned. All U.S.
troops should be immediately returned to their families, homes and
jobs in the U.S. The national treasure now being squandered on the
military occupation of Iraq should be redirected to reparations to
the Iraqis for the destruction our military has wrought and to
meeting the human needs of the people of the U.S. and the world.
Yours truly,
/s/
Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason, Bob Muehlenkamp, Nancy Wohlforth
Co-Convenors
Wednesday, September 27
Wednesday, September 20
IUS Meeting at Manchester Stop the War demo
Iraq Union Solidarity will be holding a meeting after the Stop the War Demo in Manchester on Saturday 23rd December.
We will be screening DVDs about the Iraqi labour movement, and will have a speaker from the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, alongside Robin Sivapalan, an IUS activist suspended from his teaching-assistant job for protesting against Tony Blair's visit to the school where he works.
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester from 16.30 to 18.30
We will be screening DVDs about the Iraqi labour movement, and will have a speaker from the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, alongside Robin Sivapalan, an IUS activist suspended from his teaching-assistant job for protesting against Tony Blair's visit to the school where he works.
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester from 16.30 to 18.30
Sunday, September 10
Interview with Samir Adil
Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress, a movement initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, spoke to Martin Thomas when he visited London in July.
Oil workers in southern Iraq are planning to strike against the sectarian militias — the Iraq Freedom Congress is asking all its members to support it.
The demands are:
• Abolition of all contracts which include imposed privatisation.
• The disbanding and expulsion of armed militias from Iraqi cities.
• An end to the killing of workers by the armed militias in Iraqi cities.
• Continued distribution of food rations.
• Continued distribution of profit-sharing bonuses to the oil workers.
In our view there is no real government, no real state, in Iraq. But we want to send a message to the occupation and to what is supposed to be the government of Iraq.
The IFC is working for an end to the sectarian militias. But as yet we are not strong enough to eliminate them. The strike is very important to unite workers and to show that there is another power in Iraq, independent from the occupation and the sectarian militias.
The southern oil union had put out a much longer and different list of demands (www.basraoilunion.org), but we now have agreement on the new demands.
We worked hard to get three of the leaders of the southern oil workers into IFC. In the end we convinced them that we need a secular government.
We know that previous statements from the southern oil union have been headed: “In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful”. We are working to change that. We tell the union leaders that the workers have all sorts of views - Christian or atheist as well as Muslim - and the union should not impose on them statements “in the name of God”.
The positive thing is that in the oil union there is strong resistance to ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing. There is no sectarian conflict among the workers in the workplaces.
IFC’s aim is to unite the workers. Our statement after the 22 February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra - “no Shia, no Sunni” - was very popular.
But there is a financial problem. We could open IFC offices, but we have no money. Because of our policy against Iran, against Syria, against the Gulf states, and against the occupation, we get no money from any state.
We know that in the past the southern oil workers have been mobilised in support of the provincial authorities in Basra in their conflicts with Baghdad over shares of the oil revenue. Among the leaders of the oil union there are also members of the Fadila party [a dissident Sadrist, Shia-Islamist group], which runs the provincial government.
The IFC decided to oppose meetings between the oil union and the provincial government. Our demands are not just demands for oil workers, but for all the workers in Iraq. Now we have Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of the Baghdad government, negotiating with the oil union leaders.
There is political conflict inside the leadership of the oil union. To find the union’s statements referring approvingly to the “legally elected government” is not strange. But we are working hard to bring the whole union under IFC influence.
Three years ago Hassan Jumaa, the southern oil union leader, was pro-occupation. Last year, in the negotiations about a joint statement by Iraqi union leaders at the end of their speaking tour of the USA, he was against secularism. Now he has joined the IFC, which takes its stand against both political Islam and the occupation.
Against the Shia sectarian militias, the Sunni sectarian militias, and forces like Iyad Allawi’s, IFC represents another political pole.
Other unions have joined IFC, for example the General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq, a grouping in Baghdad which comes from a split from the pro-Jaafari Iraqi Workers’ Union, has joined IFC.
The participants in the joint committee of Iraqi trade union organisations set up in January 2006 at a meeting sponsored by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions are Hassan Jumaa’s Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq, and the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (formerly Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions). The FWCUI supports the oil workers’ strike call. We have sent a delegation to the IWF. We have had no response from them.
We asked about the programme and strategy of the IFC project — it is similar to the programme of the Worker-communist Party, but without any of the “worker” or “communist” social and economic demands. How can the IFC gain the forces to overpower both the US/UK and the Islamist militias without mobilising on the social, economic, class questions?
We have had elections in Iraq — nobody respects the results of those elections. There is no state, no law.
The IFC is working to establish a state and law. Where we have strength, we take responsibility for security and for distributing supplies. We say “no Shia, no Sunni” - you can believe what you want individually, but you should allow no discrimination. We want to pull people away from the sectarian groups and to end the occupation. The IFC represents our way to end the occupation. If the militias kill one US or British soldier, they kill ten Iraqi people at the same time. Actions like the planned strike in the oil industry show a better way.
By mobilising millions of people under the IFC banner we can easily become the government. How to deal with social problems of education, health, electricity supplies, and so on, is clear. The profits from oil exports should be distributed equally to the Iraqi people.
If we can do it, we will go on to socialism. But today Iraqi society is not a normal society. There is no state. The IFC aims to rebuild civil society and establish a government that will give a normal life to the Iraqi people. But if we can go forward to socialism, we will not hesitate.
Oil workers in southern Iraq are planning to strike against the sectarian militias — the Iraq Freedom Congress is asking all its members to support it.
The demands are:
• Abolition of all contracts which include imposed privatisation.
• The disbanding and expulsion of armed militias from Iraqi cities.
• An end to the killing of workers by the armed militias in Iraqi cities.
• Continued distribution of food rations.
• Continued distribution of profit-sharing bonuses to the oil workers.
In our view there is no real government, no real state, in Iraq. But we want to send a message to the occupation and to what is supposed to be the government of Iraq.
The IFC is working for an end to the sectarian militias. But as yet we are not strong enough to eliminate them. The strike is very important to unite workers and to show that there is another power in Iraq, independent from the occupation and the sectarian militias.
The southern oil union had put out a much longer and different list of demands (www.basraoilunion.org), but we now have agreement on the new demands.
We worked hard to get three of the leaders of the southern oil workers into IFC. In the end we convinced them that we need a secular government.
We know that previous statements from the southern oil union have been headed: “In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful”. We are working to change that. We tell the union leaders that the workers have all sorts of views - Christian or atheist as well as Muslim - and the union should not impose on them statements “in the name of God”.
The positive thing is that in the oil union there is strong resistance to ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing. There is no sectarian conflict among the workers in the workplaces.
IFC’s aim is to unite the workers. Our statement after the 22 February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra - “no Shia, no Sunni” - was very popular.
But there is a financial problem. We could open IFC offices, but we have no money. Because of our policy against Iran, against Syria, against the Gulf states, and against the occupation, we get no money from any state.
We know that in the past the southern oil workers have been mobilised in support of the provincial authorities in Basra in their conflicts with Baghdad over shares of the oil revenue. Among the leaders of the oil union there are also members of the Fadila party [a dissident Sadrist, Shia-Islamist group], which runs the provincial government.
The IFC decided to oppose meetings between the oil union and the provincial government. Our demands are not just demands for oil workers, but for all the workers in Iraq. Now we have Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of the Baghdad government, negotiating with the oil union leaders.
There is political conflict inside the leadership of the oil union. To find the union’s statements referring approvingly to the “legally elected government” is not strange. But we are working hard to bring the whole union under IFC influence.
Three years ago Hassan Jumaa, the southern oil union leader, was pro-occupation. Last year, in the negotiations about a joint statement by Iraqi union leaders at the end of their speaking tour of the USA, he was against secularism. Now he has joined the IFC, which takes its stand against both political Islam and the occupation.
Against the Shia sectarian militias, the Sunni sectarian militias, and forces like Iyad Allawi’s, IFC represents another political pole.
Other unions have joined IFC, for example the General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq, a grouping in Baghdad which comes from a split from the pro-Jaafari Iraqi Workers’ Union, has joined IFC.
The participants in the joint committee of Iraqi trade union organisations set up in January 2006 at a meeting sponsored by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions are Hassan Jumaa’s Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq, and the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (formerly Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions). The FWCUI supports the oil workers’ strike call. We have sent a delegation to the IWF. We have had no response from them.
We asked about the programme and strategy of the IFC project — it is similar to the programme of the Worker-communist Party, but without any of the “worker” or “communist” social and economic demands. How can the IFC gain the forces to overpower both the US/UK and the Islamist militias without mobilising on the social, economic, class questions?
We have had elections in Iraq — nobody respects the results of those elections. There is no state, no law.
The IFC is working to establish a state and law. Where we have strength, we take responsibility for security and for distributing supplies. We say “no Shia, no Sunni” - you can believe what you want individually, but you should allow no discrimination. We want to pull people away from the sectarian groups and to end the occupation. The IFC represents our way to end the occupation. If the militias kill one US or British soldier, they kill ten Iraqi people at the same time. Actions like the planned strike in the oil industry show a better way.
By mobilising millions of people under the IFC banner we can easily become the government. How to deal with social problems of education, health, electricity supplies, and so on, is clear. The profits from oil exports should be distributed equally to the Iraqi people.
If we can do it, we will go on to socialism. But today Iraqi society is not a normal society. There is no state. The IFC aims to rebuild civil society and establish a government that will give a normal life to the Iraqi people. But if we can go forward to socialism, we will not hesitate.
Victory for Iraqi oilworkers
On 29 August, oil pipeline workers in Basra and in Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq, announced victory in their 48-hour strike of 22-23 August, which stopped oil supplies from the south to central Iraq.
The General Union of Oil Employees said that the strikers had won their demands:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Ambulances at workplaces to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
Union leader Hassan Jumaa said that the oil ministry was discussing a pay rise and restoration of the profit-sharing bonuses previously paid to oil workers.
But he warned that the workers would strike again if remaining grievances about management practices are not resolved.
The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions was more upbeat, declaring that "a general strike by union workers could soon follow the Basra oil workers' strike", the FWCUI said. "Union leaders will meet next week to finalize demands and set a deadline for the authorities' response. The demands currently under discussion include housing the workers, raising minimum salaries, expanding limits of promotion and salary, converting contracted workers into full-time workers, and curbing bureaucracy and corruption.
"A joint national protest is being planned by oil workers in Basra, cement workers in Sulaimaniyah, employees of the Baghdad Municipality, and workers in the Central Oil Fields in Baghdad and the vicinity, the Al Dora Refinery, Al Taji Gas, Oil Projects, Engineering Oil Industries and the Oil Institution".
A two-hour meeting of leaders of the technicians' unions of the oil sector at FWCUI offices on 29 August 2006, says the FWCUI, decided "to hold an inclusive gathering for the leading unionists with the workers on Monday 4 September in order to finalise the demands and decide a deadline for the authorities. Otherwise, a general strike will be held to join the previous oil strike of the south".
The FWCUI also comments that "some political forces attempted to hijack and take advantage of the demands of the [Southern oil] workers for their own interests and objectives such as emphasising the division of the country based on the federalism in the south".
Southern oil workers have previously struck to back demands for more oil revenues to go to the Basra provincial government rather than Baghdad, demands promoted by the Fadila party, an Islamist party which controls the Basra provincial government. But this time, it seems, such demands were sidelined in favour of a united workers' stand to improve conditions for all workers.
At this time, the workers insist to have all of their demands met in full, otherwise the pipelines will not be opened and work will not continue.
The oil workers' strike was a tremendously important step in the revival of the new Iraqi labour movement after a long period, since early 2005, when it has been very much on the defensive. The recent social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan point the same way.
There is still a long way to travel between the workers gaining the confidence for limited action to improve their immediate conditions - a vital first step - and the workers' movement acquiring sufficient strength to pull Iraq out of its spiral into ever-hotter sectarian civil war.
Barham Salih is the official Iraqi government's deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. If he will not claim the Iraqi economy is going well, who will? On 29 August he had some good news to announce - an alleged deal (no details yet) between the major Iraqi parties over the distribution of oil revenue.
Yet in announcing the deal, Salih commented, deadpan: "Iraq is a devastated economic wasteland".
It is pretty much a devastated social and political wasteland too, three and a half years since the US/UK invasion - and getting worse.
On 1 September a Pentagon report to the US Congress said sectarian violence had worsened over the past three months
"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife"... The Sunni-supremacist insurgency remains "potent and viable".
According to the Pentagon, attacks rose 24 per cent to 792 per week, and Iraqi casualties 51 per cent to nearly 120 per day, over the three months.
Is the official Iraqi government is in any condition to deal with this? Another deadpan US report tells us why not. US general William Caldwell has proudly announced the first of the 10 Iraqi divisions will be transferred from "coalition" (US) command to at least notional Iraqi government control at the start of September. "This is a significant step in the Iraqi path to self-reliance and security", Caldwell said. "What this means is that the Iraqi Minister of Defence is prepared to begin assuming direct operational control over Iraq's armed forces."
So the Iraqi armed forces were not even nominally under Iraqi government control before! Whether those armed forces - large parts of which are recycled Shia and Kurdish militias - will now do what Iraqi government ministers say, and whether they will have the logistic capability to do anything significant without heavy US cooperation, is yet to be seen.
The underlying story of the last few months is that USA has tacitly conceded defeat in its drive, over the last year or so, to make its military position in Iraq more manageable by "Iraqisation" - reducing troop numbers, and troop activity on the ground, and relying more on bombing from the air in support of Iraqi government forces cooperating with the USA.
US troop numbers are now rising rather than falling. In early August up to 7000 US troops went on to the streets of Baghdad in an effort described as "retaking the city". Without success.
Both the US/UK occupation, and the sectarian Islamist militias, are driving towards disaster. The Iraqi workers' movement now tentatively re-raising its head is the only hope for a democratic, livable, free Iraq. Solidarity with it is our first duty.
(Article by Martin Thomas from Solidarity 3/98)
The General Union of Oil Employees said that the strikers had won their demands:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Ambulances at workplaces to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
Union leader Hassan Jumaa said that the oil ministry was discussing a pay rise and restoration of the profit-sharing bonuses previously paid to oil workers.
But he warned that the workers would strike again if remaining grievances about management practices are not resolved.
The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions was more upbeat, declaring that "a general strike by union workers could soon follow the Basra oil workers' strike", the FWCUI said. "Union leaders will meet next week to finalize demands and set a deadline for the authorities' response. The demands currently under discussion include housing the workers, raising minimum salaries, expanding limits of promotion and salary, converting contracted workers into full-time workers, and curbing bureaucracy and corruption.
"A joint national protest is being planned by oil workers in Basra, cement workers in Sulaimaniyah, employees of the Baghdad Municipality, and workers in the Central Oil Fields in Baghdad and the vicinity, the Al Dora Refinery, Al Taji Gas, Oil Projects, Engineering Oil Industries and the Oil Institution".
A two-hour meeting of leaders of the technicians' unions of the oil sector at FWCUI offices on 29 August 2006, says the FWCUI, decided "to hold an inclusive gathering for the leading unionists with the workers on Monday 4 September in order to finalise the demands and decide a deadline for the authorities. Otherwise, a general strike will be held to join the previous oil strike of the south".
The FWCUI also comments that "some political forces attempted to hijack and take advantage of the demands of the [Southern oil] workers for their own interests and objectives such as emphasising the division of the country based on the federalism in the south".
Southern oil workers have previously struck to back demands for more oil revenues to go to the Basra provincial government rather than Baghdad, demands promoted by the Fadila party, an Islamist party which controls the Basra provincial government. But this time, it seems, such demands were sidelined in favour of a united workers' stand to improve conditions for all workers.
At this time, the workers insist to have all of their demands met in full, otherwise the pipelines will not be opened and work will not continue.
The oil workers' strike was a tremendously important step in the revival of the new Iraqi labour movement after a long period, since early 2005, when it has been very much on the defensive. The recent social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan point the same way.
There is still a long way to travel between the workers gaining the confidence for limited action to improve their immediate conditions - a vital first step - and the workers' movement acquiring sufficient strength to pull Iraq out of its spiral into ever-hotter sectarian civil war.
Barham Salih is the official Iraqi government's deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. If he will not claim the Iraqi economy is going well, who will? On 29 August he had some good news to announce - an alleged deal (no details yet) between the major Iraqi parties over the distribution of oil revenue.
Yet in announcing the deal, Salih commented, deadpan: "Iraq is a devastated economic wasteland".
It is pretty much a devastated social and political wasteland too, three and a half years since the US/UK invasion - and getting worse.
On 1 September a Pentagon report to the US Congress said sectarian violence had worsened over the past three months
"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife"... The Sunni-supremacist insurgency remains "potent and viable".
According to the Pentagon, attacks rose 24 per cent to 792 per week, and Iraqi casualties 51 per cent to nearly 120 per day, over the three months.
Is the official Iraqi government is in any condition to deal with this? Another deadpan US report tells us why not. US general William Caldwell has proudly announced the first of the 10 Iraqi divisions will be transferred from "coalition" (US) command to at least notional Iraqi government control at the start of September. "This is a significant step in the Iraqi path to self-reliance and security", Caldwell said. "What this means is that the Iraqi Minister of Defence is prepared to begin assuming direct operational control over Iraq's armed forces."
So the Iraqi armed forces were not even nominally under Iraqi government control before! Whether those armed forces - large parts of which are recycled Shia and Kurdish militias - will now do what Iraqi government ministers say, and whether they will have the logistic capability to do anything significant without heavy US cooperation, is yet to be seen.
The underlying story of the last few months is that USA has tacitly conceded defeat in its drive, over the last year or so, to make its military position in Iraq more manageable by "Iraqisation" - reducing troop numbers, and troop activity on the ground, and relying more on bombing from the air in support of Iraqi government forces cooperating with the USA.
US troop numbers are now rising rather than falling. In early August up to 7000 US troops went on to the streets of Baghdad in an effort described as "retaking the city". Without success.
Both the US/UK occupation, and the sectarian Islamist militias, are driving towards disaster. The Iraqi workers' movement now tentatively re-raising its head is the only hope for a democratic, livable, free Iraq. Solidarity with it is our first duty.
(Article by Martin Thomas from Solidarity 3/98)
Tuesday, September 5
Homophobic terror: The Talibanisation of Iraq
Peter Tatchell reveals the targeted execution of gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads. (As published in Tribune - London, UK - 1 September 2006). Parts of Iraq, including some Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of Taliban-style fundamentalist militias.
They enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.
Iraq is sliding fast towards theocracy and is likely to end up similar to Iran. The power and influence of fundamentalist militias is growing rapidly. Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s ruling coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship.
Despite this goal of clerical fascism, the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition support Muqtada al-Sadr. They invited his representative to speak at the anti-war rally in London on 18 March. Not to be outdone, the July issue of the left-wing monthly Red Pepper gave over a whole page to white-washing al-Sadr’s crimes against humanity.
The terrorisation of gay Iraqis by these Islamist death squads is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence.
Under Saddam Hussein discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of gay people is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq’s leading cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, as indicated by the following reports received from my clandestine gay activist contacts inside Iraq:
Wissam Auda was a member of Iraq’s Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play at Wimbledon this year. He had been receiving death threats from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May, his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and team mate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street. Their crime? Wearing shorts. An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses.
The father of 23 year old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor. Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia murdered two of his family members in retribution.
Nyaz is a 28-year old dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and her family will be targeted for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.
Gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity.
Fourteen year old Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. According to his Baghdad neighbour, in April four men in police uniforms arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck. They wore the distinctive face masks of the Badr militia. The neighbour saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.
In the chaos and lawlessness of post-war Iraq, hundreds of young boys are being blackmailed into the sex industry. The sex ring operators lure the boys into having gay sex, photograph them and then threaten to publish their photos unless they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness was publicly revealed, the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.
Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq’s life. But he was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.
The UK gay rights group OutRage! is working to support our counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account. The UK gay rights group OutRage! is helping them. Cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
They enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.
Iraq is sliding fast towards theocracy and is likely to end up similar to Iran. The power and influence of fundamentalist militias is growing rapidly. Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s ruling coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship.
Despite this goal of clerical fascism, the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition support Muqtada al-Sadr. They invited his representative to speak at the anti-war rally in London on 18 March. Not to be outdone, the July issue of the left-wing monthly Red Pepper gave over a whole page to white-washing al-Sadr’s crimes against humanity.
The terrorisation of gay Iraqis by these Islamist death squads is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence.
Under Saddam Hussein discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of gay people is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq’s leading cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, as indicated by the following reports received from my clandestine gay activist contacts inside Iraq:
Wissam Auda was a member of Iraq’s Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play at Wimbledon this year. He had been receiving death threats from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May, his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and team mate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street. Their crime? Wearing shorts. An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses.
The father of 23 year old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor. Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia murdered two of his family members in retribution.
Nyaz is a 28-year old dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and her family will be targeted for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.
Gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity.
Fourteen year old Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. According to his Baghdad neighbour, in April four men in police uniforms arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck. They wore the distinctive face masks of the Badr militia. The neighbour saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.
In the chaos and lawlessness of post-war Iraq, hundreds of young boys are being blackmailed into the sex industry. The sex ring operators lure the boys into having gay sex, photograph them and then threaten to publish their photos unless they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness was publicly revealed, the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.
Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq’s life. But he was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.
The UK gay rights group OutRage! is working to support our counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account. The UK gay rights group OutRage! is helping them. Cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
Friday, September 1
Sign the petition for human rights in Kurdistan
Please sign the petition at the web address below, to protest against the massive human rights violations perpetrated by the PUK-KDP government of Iraqi Kurdistan. http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ifir2006/petition.html
Kurdistan unsafe but Home Office still intent on sending people back there
Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq press release: An increasing number of Iraqi Kurds have been detained in the past month.
We estimate the Home Office may have 40 or more Iraqi Kurds in detention in Colnbrook, Campsfield, Harmonsworth and Dover. We understand that the Home Office plans to restart forced removals to Iraq in September.
All over Britain Iraqis are living in fear of a dawn raid on their home, or of arrest at their place of work or when they go to report at the Home Office signing centre. They fear losing even the precarious position they have found in British society.
Kurdistan unsafe
The dangers of central and southern Iraq are well-known. Less well-known are conditions in Northern Iraq / South Kurdistan. But news from there shows that contrary to what Tony Blair and his Home Office would have us believe, Northern Iraq too is not free, safe and democratic.
In the last 3 weeks some 400 people have been arrested and 60 people injured.
It is reported that about 2000 young people have fled the country within a week.
Security forces from the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, regularly shoot demonstrators.
Investigative journalists are routinely arrested by the security forces.
Honour killings and suicides by women have reached epidemic levels.
Many people arrested in March 2006 in Halabja after protests about lack of health care and services in the town, and the way the PUK leadership cash in on Halabja’s suffering, are still in prison.
At the end of July cement factory workers, striking because they had not been paid, were shot at and 13 were injured by the security forces in Suleimanyia.
On 7 August 1000 people took part in a demonstration in Chamchamal, and the PUK arrested ten of them.
In Darbandixan south of Suleimanyia on 7 August during a demonstration the PUK arrested 100 protesters and wounded 11.
Protests have also taken place in Kalar, Kifri, Zarayan, Kirkuk.
Why the protests in Kurdistan?
People are fed up with seeing rampant official corruption and incompetence and the luxurious lifestyles of the party leaders and their hangers-on. This all contrasts painfully with run-away inflation, high unemployment rates, petrol shortages, water shortages, power cuts, a losing battle to make ends meet for ordinary people, and persecution if you overstep the narrow bounds of acceptable criticism.
European Council for Refugees opposes forced and mandatory returns
The European Council on Exiles and Refugees said in its March 2006 report, “ECRE believes that the current situation in Iraq is such that the mandatory or forced return of Iraqis is unacceptable, and recommends a continued ban on forced return to any part of the country, including the Kurdish Autonomous Region.”
Our demands
We have said before, and we repeat now, that Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous, and that it is wrong to return people there. People who had problems with the KDP or PUK or Islamist groups in the past will still be at risk of the same problems if they are sent back now – the KDP and PUK are still in power, and the Islamists are still active. Plus the general security situation is not good.
Once again we call on the Home Office to
recognise that Iraq is not safe, and that people should not be returned there.
to regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with the recent proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document “Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities” published on 13 July.
For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0207– 809 - 0633 or 0793-211-6615 sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal, International Federation of Iraqi Refugees 0785 603 2991or d.jamal@ntlworld.com or sarahp107@hotmail.com.
See also the website www.csdiraq.com
No Deportations to Iraq!
We estimate the Home Office may have 40 or more Iraqi Kurds in detention in Colnbrook, Campsfield, Harmonsworth and Dover. We understand that the Home Office plans to restart forced removals to Iraq in September.
All over Britain Iraqis are living in fear of a dawn raid on their home, or of arrest at their place of work or when they go to report at the Home Office signing centre. They fear losing even the precarious position they have found in British society.
Kurdistan unsafe
The dangers of central and southern Iraq are well-known. Less well-known are conditions in Northern Iraq / South Kurdistan. But news from there shows that contrary to what Tony Blair and his Home Office would have us believe, Northern Iraq too is not free, safe and democratic.
In the last 3 weeks some 400 people have been arrested and 60 people injured.
It is reported that about 2000 young people have fled the country within a week.
Security forces from the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, regularly shoot demonstrators.
Investigative journalists are routinely arrested by the security forces.
Honour killings and suicides by women have reached epidemic levels.
Many people arrested in March 2006 in Halabja after protests about lack of health care and services in the town, and the way the PUK leadership cash in on Halabja’s suffering, are still in prison.
At the end of July cement factory workers, striking because they had not been paid, were shot at and 13 were injured by the security forces in Suleimanyia.
On 7 August 1000 people took part in a demonstration in Chamchamal, and the PUK arrested ten of them.
In Darbandixan south of Suleimanyia on 7 August during a demonstration the PUK arrested 100 protesters and wounded 11.
Protests have also taken place in Kalar, Kifri, Zarayan, Kirkuk.
Why the protests in Kurdistan?
People are fed up with seeing rampant official corruption and incompetence and the luxurious lifestyles of the party leaders and their hangers-on. This all contrasts painfully with run-away inflation, high unemployment rates, petrol shortages, water shortages, power cuts, a losing battle to make ends meet for ordinary people, and persecution if you overstep the narrow bounds of acceptable criticism.
European Council for Refugees opposes forced and mandatory returns
The European Council on Exiles and Refugees said in its March 2006 report, “ECRE believes that the current situation in Iraq is such that the mandatory or forced return of Iraqis is unacceptable, and recommends a continued ban on forced return to any part of the country, including the Kurdish Autonomous Region.”
Our demands
We have said before, and we repeat now, that Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous, and that it is wrong to return people there. People who had problems with the KDP or PUK or Islamist groups in the past will still be at risk of the same problems if they are sent back now – the KDP and PUK are still in power, and the Islamists are still active. Plus the general security situation is not good.
Once again we call on the Home Office to
recognise that Iraq is not safe, and that people should not be returned there.
to regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with the recent proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document “Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities” published on 13 July.
For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0207– 809 - 0633 or 0793-211-6615 sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal, International Federation of Iraqi Refugees 0785 603 2991or d.jamal@ntlworld.com or sarahp107@hotmail.com.
See also the website www.csdiraq.com
No Deportations to Iraq!
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