An Iraqi Group Helping Women and Gays Is Receiving Death Threats

[DonViejo]

Jacob Siegel

Religious groups are threatening to kill the members one of the few Iraqi organizations dedicated to helping women and gays.

BAGHDAD — A little girl toddles around shopping bags brimming with relief supplies that are heading for Iraqi refugees and into the arms of Dalal Jumaa, who heads this office of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. Jumaa hugs the little girl and lets her go, then turns to me. “Today I am very scared,” she says in a low voice. “This morning they called and said if you do not move from this house we will kill you.”

It was the police who phoned the organization Sunday morning, Jumaa said. They told her they had heard she harbored gay men and runaway girls. But the threat, which the police were relaying, came from Asaib Ahl al Haq, a powerful and notoriously brutal Shia militia in Baghdad. “I cannot stop Asaib Ahl al Haq,” the policeman told her, “they received this information and will kill you if you don’t leave.”

The Organization, as everyone calls it, stood accused of pimping out the young women in its shelters, which Jumaa said is a lie commonly used to slander Iraqi groups advocating for women’s rights. She convinced the policeman of her innocence but the militia wouldn’t be waiting to hear her out. Asaib Ahl al Haq is the group believed to have slaughtered 29 women alleged to be prostitutes last week in the upscale neighborhood of Zayouna.

Advocating for women’s rights has never been safe work in Iraq but as the war empowers radical religious groups, it’s growing more dangerous. In an earlier conversation, Hanaa Edwar, who heads the Iraqi Al-Amal Association, another NGO in Baghdad that works on women’s rights issues, warned about the rise of the militias’ power. “The militias try to replace the rule of the law,” she said. “The armed groups are trying to replace the security forces. This is a horrible thing for the country.”

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/22/an-iraqi-group-helping-women-and-gays-is-receiving-death-threats.html

[get the red out]

1. I am not at all shocked

We can expect nothing different in that part of the world. Only a strong man dictator could ever keep the 12th century at bay over there.