For the women of Iraq, the war is just beginning

[cal04]

The women of Basra have disappeared. Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women's secular freedoms - once the envy of women across the Middle East - have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country. Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have been kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as "inappropriate behaviour".

The insurrection against the fragile and barely functioning state has left the country prey to extremists whose notion of freedom does not extend to women. In the British-occupied south, where Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death.

One Basra woman, known only as Dr Kefaya, was working in the women and children's hospital unit at the city university when she started receiving threats from extremists. She defied them. Then, one day a man walked into the building and murdered her. Eman Aziz, one of the first women to speak publicly about the dangers, said:"There were five people on the death list with Dr Kefaya. They were threatened 'If you continue working, you will be killed'."
Many women are too afraid to complain. But, fearful that their rights will be eroded for good, some have taken the courageous step of speaking out.

(snip)
Ms Alebadi said: "After the fall of the regime, the religious extremist parties came out on to the streets and threatened women. Although the extremists are in the minority, they control powerful positions, so they control Basra." To venture on the streets today without a male relative is to risk attack, humiliation or kidnap. A journalist, Shatta Kareem, said: "I was driving my car one day when someone just crashed into me and drove me off the road. If a woman is seen driving these days it is considered a violation of men's rights." There is a fear that Islamic law will become enshrined in the new legislation. Ms Aziz said: "In the Muslim religion, if a man dies his money goes to a male member of the family. After the Iran-Iraq war, there were so many widows that Saddam changed the law so it would go to the women and children. Now it has been changed back."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article717570.ece

[grytpype]

1. Freedom is marching, I know cause George and Karl said so.

So this article is wrong and it hates the troops.

[Drum]

2. Truly unjust!

The OP title is absolutely right. The US' pushing in on the Iraqi (and other regional) culture has and will result in an entrenchment mentality, where repressive laws and practices toward women will bloom and overtake progess.

A truly bad legacy from this administration, undoing so much. And for, as Bush says, liberty and freedom and democracy.

Shame!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Saddam changed the law so it would go to the women and children.

Saddam changed the law so it would go to the women and children.<<

18,000 people succumb to a lack of heathcare (die) in the U.S. each year... Iraq had socialized medicine.

Iraq had more PHD's per capita than the U.S., many were/are women... perhaps now they can use their PHD's to stitch burqas together for their peers.

Iraq had destroyed its WMD's.

Iraq was cutting up missiles towards the bitter end, in spite of the fact that they knew they were going to get their collective asses kicked to hell and back.

Saddam was writing romance novels, an extremely dangerous activity on the world stage.

Iraq had been punished mercilessly in GWI.

Iraq had been punished mercilessly with sanctions.

Iraq allowed U.N. inspectors all over their country.

We are the good guys, peddling myths, espousing lies and generally mucking up the place. I'm so sorry for where we have allowed these bastard neocons to take us. This entire haphazard, ill thought out, misadventure is the bane of us all, and we have a half witted cowboy so say from Texas blowing hot air out of a megaphone, while monkeys fly out of his butt. What the hell has happened to this country??? What the hell has happened to this GD country.