Iraq: Where death is the penalty for going bare-headed

international | gender and sexuality | other press

Sunday October 29, 2006 18:50

by Mary Riddell

Women die at the hands of the occupying US forces; but most women die at the hands of the "Resistance". Read the full article by Mary Riddell at the link.

Where death is the penalty for going bare-headed

If our leaders are intent on finding peace in Iraq, they could begin by upholding women's basic human rights

Black is never out of fashion in Iraq. Some women, the bereaved, have not cast off their mourning robes since 2003. Others, Christians included, wear Muslim dress as camouflage to preserve their lives. Driving a car or walking bare-headed is a come-on to executioners in a country where last year's Western fashions have become this season's shroud.

These are hideous times for women targeted by Shiite and Sunni militias. As my colleague Peter Beaumont reported earlier this month, murder rates are rising for those in the wrong sect, the wrong job or simply the wrong place. In the new Iraq, there is only one way to live, in fear and enforced submission, but death comes in many forms. If the revenge killers, armed robbers and rape gangs do not get you, then suicide bombers might.

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Comments (4 of 4)

This anti-Muslim pro-US propaganda

by Steve

Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:34

Please delete.

America is the enemy

by To Steve

Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:40

America is not my enemy. On what basis should the above be deleted ?

this is fact

by OMG

Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:41

not fiction, please leave

it accurately describes the conditions women in Iraq have to put up with as militias rage and kill their own people at an alarmingly nasty rate with the objective of strenghtening their powerbaseand expanding their territory through blatent murder of the opposites religious sects
The truth is it aint pretty

but its the truth

women have no rights under sharia

by Sean

Tue Oct 31, 2006 15:15

Steve, I see you advocate Stalinesque style censorship, "I dont agree with it, so it must be censored", otherwise the Ugly little secret gets out & People will realize the insurgents, terrorists, resistance has no clothes.

Hate for the yanks is one thing, if thats what You like fine, but dont excuse or ignore the appalling behaviour of these groups you admire as well. They are hardly Liberators, if we re named them Israeli you would be screaming for their blood.

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Iraq: Where death is the penalty for going bare-headed

Comments (4 of 4)