To sign this petition, Click here.
Doa was stoned to death in the centre of the town of Bashiqa, Iraqi Kurdistan, in front of hundreds of people and the authorities did not prevent this crime from happening. On the contrary, they were present and paving the way for this horrific crime to be carried out.
Doa was a 17 year old girl from a family of Yazidi faith; she was snatched from her house by some Yazidi men who discovered that she was in love with a Muslim Arab man and had visited him. They stoned her to death in public on 7th April 2007 in the town of Bashiqa.
It is known that women in Kurdistan and Iraq are oppressed. The few rights they do have are very limited and in most cases they are treated as sub-humans.
Killings, suicide, and violence against women are an every day occurrence in this region. Although a crime of this nature is very new to Kurdistan, this is an indication that such crimes against women are now tolerated. Doa’s killers are still free.
The government’s failure to protect women, and enforce laws against criminals, has created a situation where thousands of women become victims of so called “honour killings”. Violence has risen as result of patriarchal and religious traditions.
We strongly condemn this barbaric act, and call upon all human rights and women’s rights organisations, political parties, and activists in Kurdistan and globally to condemn this crime.
In the 21st century, for such crimes to be carried out in broad daylight is not only a shame on society as whole, but most of all, it is a shame on a government that is unable to protect women from such inhumane and backward practices. The stoning of Doa sets a dangerous precedent for more women to become victims of stoning.
We hold the Kurdistan Regional Government responsible for the lives and protection of women in this region, and we believe that the brutalisation and victimisation of women must come to an end.
We the undersigned therefore demand:
That the Kurdistan Regional Government brings the killers to justice and punishes them.
The Kurdistan regional Government should set laws against terror, killings and oppression of women, and punish criminals.
To avoid this barbaric crime from becoming a norm and a practice in Kurdish society, the Kurdistan Regional Government should criminalise stoning to death.
The initiators of this campaign are:
Houzan Mahmoud: Representative abroad of Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq and campaign coordinator
Raga Rauf: Writer and women’s rights activist and campaign coordinator
Samera Mohammed: Editor of Rasan women’s newspaper in Kurdistan
Yanar Mohammed: President Of Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
Aram Ali: Coordinator of the Kurdish website
Baker Ahmad: Writer and poet
Dler Colnadar: member of executive board of CHAK organisation
Omar Faris: coordinator of a Kurdish website
Dina Nammi: International Campaign against Honour Killings
Amal Almas: (Iraqi Women’s League) Gothenburg -Sweden
Federation of Workers councils and unions in Iraq/ Kurdistan representative
Chro Sabir: Director of Rasan women’s organisation in Kurdistan
Hana Shwan: Journalist and women’s rights activist in Kurdistan
Hamza Abd: The Iraqi Cultural House in Gothenburg-Sweden
To join this campaign or to show your support pleases contact: Campaign Coordinators: Houzan Mahmoud and Rega Rauf.
Maryam Namazie
35 comments:
Signed
One of the most sinister aspects is the way modern technology is used to document such disgusting acts, as in this case it appears to have been recorded on a mobile phone.
Beak: I don't understand your point. It is off base from the content of the post.
One of the arguments for the invasion, used by Hitchens, and at one time influenced my opiniom; was that the left in Iraq supported the invasion, including the Stalinist Communist Party.
Terrible crime, my partner is currently acting in a play in London that touches on the stoning of girls for crimes.
Awful stuff.
This is state-facilitated murder!
This is fucking sick. I signed it.
beakerkin - this is a disgusting abuse, YES or NO?
Most Horrible. The red Adidas sweatshirt stands out amoungst the crowd of men's boots.
In what way is it 'framed' as a 'Yezidi problem'?? I'm not quite sure I follow you.
I see nothing in this that defames the Yezidis. All I see is that this girl was stoned to death while the whole thing was filmed. That is all that matters. I'm rather less worried about which community the perpetraters are from, and more concerned with the actual action itself. Obviously you believe vice versa.
seems like elizabethan times when you could condemn witches to death. But this is no witch but an innocent 17 year old. This is so unjust and barbaric. It should be condemned.
Beak: Do you believe that Maryam my blog team member, is soft on Islamism?
I cannot stand to read most of these comments. They have nothing to do with Doa or the "women" of "Kurdistan".
I shall not sign this petition!
I shall not support "the protection" of "women" in somewhere called "Kurdistan" through a symbolic act of "signing". It's an impotent, meaningless, and pointless act. If members of the Western, liberal, bourgeoisie actually cared about "women" in "Kurdistan", they would travel there and fight. Petitions shall not solve any of this planet's inequalities. Petitions only serve one function: they ease the guilt of the bourgeoisie and abolish the bourgeoisie of the responsibility of "acting". Petitions support the misogynistic, patriarchal status quo.
Only through revolutionary violence shall we destroy oppressive systems!
Off topic: any thoughts on Blair?
ortho: There is a place and time for revolutionary violence. This situation isn't one of them. Maryam often leads international petition drives that bring results.
Daniel: Blair's legacy will be that he destroyed Labor, and caused the Tories to come to power again. He will make $$$ on speaking engagements sponsored by rightist think tanks. He also has a book deal coming.
It is a common practice in a lot of Muslim countries. Amputating hands of thieves in Saudi, revenge gang rape in Pakistan etc. Most of these countries(rather rulers only) are allies of liberal West. Ironically, women relatively are far better off in so-called evil North Korea or Cuba. I am too cynical to sign the petition, but I will pray for her soul and for the love that she could not have.
I am going to sign this thing, as just a rather lame demonstration of solidarity. But it won’t do any good.
The hard facts are these: primitive behaviour like this exists in societies which have not developed. Economic development is the key to places like this. Afghanistan won’t get out of the Stone Age, for instance, until it develops economically. Any help we give places like this should be real attempts to encourage real and self-sustained growth.
As for our friend Blair. You are getting your chicken and eggs mixed up, Renegade. Blair did not destroy Labour. I was a member of the Labour party when Blair was elected leader. I had given up as an active member for two years previously because the :Labour party, as the old socialist thing that it was, was over. Finished. Blair is a product of that disintegration, he did not cause it.
And the old Labour party will not be coming back as the institutions and culture that formed it in the first place have gone in the UK.
Blair was also responsible for bombing Iraq into the stone age. So he is as responsible for such disgusting acts like the stoning to death of little girls like Doa as anyone.
Here’s to the future. And Blair can go fuck himself.
Petitions only serve one function: they ease the guilt of the bourgeoisie
Well, at least there is guilt. I don't remember any petitions for French girls paraded naked with their heads shaved (and occasionally even killed) in 1945, and whose only 'crime' was exactly the same as Doa's...
Btw,
Why are you all arguing with Beak ? I don't see any comment from him...
I agree with Ortho, with the caveat that the revolutionary violence has to be conducted by the people who live in the particular countries where these acts occur.
Elections won't do the job, unfortunately, because in many if not most of these Muslim nations, such acts are sanctioned by the judicial system, which by and large are wholly owned subsidiaries of the immams.
The people have to rise up against them, and they have to kill them. That's the only way stuff like this will stop.
But it won't, because most Muslims are fucking cowards who piss and shit all over themselves when an immam says boo, gives them a dirty look, or even happens to cross their path while they are thinking an impure thought.
Muslims will never rise up against the immams or the judicial systems they have spawned.
Therefore, this shit will go on indefinitely, and all the petitions in the world aren't going to change it.
Anytime a nation finds itself engaged in a war with an Islmaic nation, the first order of business should be to target for assassination every immam in the country, along with their families and immediate circles of support.
If this policy was followed, any war with any Islamic nation would be concluded within a two to three year time span at most.
Yeah..what's all this Beak thing? Beak ain;t here.
Pagan
most Muslims are fucking cowards who piss and shit all over themselves when an immam says boo,
You really are a primitive little shit, ain't cha?
"every immam in the country, along with their families and immediate circles of support." - great reasoning, Pagan. You could become the first pagan suicide bomber (in a mosque, but why not in Mecca or any place you can find imams and their families, friends etc).
Btw this lovely method was already applied, nothing new under the sun : how laddish.
Ren, as for honor killings: signing petitions of course won;t help (what about those in Germany, and how on earth can the government stop them on the short run?)
A more global approach and probably something else is needed here, and I don;t know what and how. As long as mentalities don;t change, such atrocities won't change either.
beatroot: The bigger view is that social democratic parties are moving right in general, as in Australia and France.
I rate petitioning ahead of voting. Some of Maryam's petition campaigns had an impact. I'd rather sign a petition that vote for Hillary and Obama.
Sonia: At another blog beak called my politics similar to Khmer Rouge and the Weather Underground. He never didn't mention Trotskyism. I find it threatening being accused of having politics like a bomb makers. I fought against those tendencies.
To me he is still the guy who was going to spam my blog. Why have some around who has to be persuaded that I have nothing to do with John Brown?
The straw that broke the camel's back, is on Troutsky's blog. He called him a simpleton.
Ren, re France: I followed that rather closely, Ms Royal committed all the mistakes one can. She was more Catholic than the Pope, and often more conservative then Sarko.
Racaille, both. Otherwise you are right: but there is a deep reason for that, and one cannot fight always battles long lost with such obsolete weapons.
Renegade Eye, I'm of the persusasion that the place for revolutionary violence is everywhere and that the time for revolutionary violence is now.
On Tuesday, I shall embark on a two-week field trip to France. When I return I shall report the pulse of the people who consume more than half of the planet's wine and cheese.
Pagan Temple, I'm happy you concur. I'm ecstatic you're on my side.
Ren: You would rather petition than vote!!!!
Now I have heard it all. I don’t know if you have noticed, Ren, but elections have a legal basis. The state must obey the verdict. A petition can be, and mostly is, ignored. With elections, people make choices. Petitions are merely gestures, like demonstrations, that are part of a much wider campaign. They have no power in themselves. We never struggled and died for the right to petition, but we did for the right to vote.
To claim petitions have more relevance than elections is really just the pits. Can you imagine Lenin writing in “What is to be done’…”the only way forward, comrades, is to send the Tsarist government a petition – sign it now”.
And we wonder why the Left is a spent force.
I was subjective. In the USA we only have two parties, that are so reactionary that even caucusing is impossible.
I was converted to petitions, by Maryam's campaigns have won results at times.
Overall you are right.
Revolutionary violence is rhetoric.
War permeates all of society!
Rhetoric is a tactical weapon!
Actually, I beleive that power lies away from political parties. We have seen how powerful corporations have become by utilising lobby groups, this is the way forward. Instead of joining political parties, we should focus on joining pressure groups that will lobby governments. We can achieve nothing through voting, we can achieve a great deal from organising into powerful groups that lobby governments to take action. I have seen enough through my membership of Amnesty to see that organised movements can bring change. Our strength is in our numbers.
Just re-read this and still feel as upset as I did at first. Very sad it is.
Great post.
Wow. It's like reading a bad dream, written by the enemy in hostile territory. Wow.
It's hard for you non-Moslem to accept this; however it is a Principe within our religion. Let me fix it a bit, it wasn’t the stoning death a girl was only crime was to fall in love, but might be she did zina (Arabic terms for adultery). It’s not a problem to fall in love as long as the couples do it through the way which Islam decided. We live in different world, so get used to.
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Hello, I do not agree with the previous commentator - not so simple
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