Iraq Factsheet Companion
The following excerpts are taken from the MADRE report "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq," available here.
Islamist
The term “Islamist” in this context refers to those who pursue a reactionary social and political agenda in the name of Islam, as distinct from “Islamic” relating to the religion of Islam.(i)
(i) International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic and Women Living Under Muslim Laws, “Shadow Report on Algeria to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women,” Jan. 1999.
Armed wings of Islamist political parties:
The two most powerful Iraqi political parties to emerge under US occupation are the Dawa Party—which has called for an Islamist state in Iraq since the 1970s(i)—and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)—a name that hardly disguises the party’s intent. These forces stepped into the political vacuum created by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and immediately began using their new-found power to roll back women’s rights. In fact, under US occupation, violence against women has occurred within the context of a rapid erosion of women’s legal rights and political participation.
(i) Nir Rosen, “Anatomy of a Civil War”, Boston Review, Nov./Dec. 2006.
Iraqi Governing Council:
In summer 2003, L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator of the US occupation, assembled the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), described by The Washington Post as, “a body that will cooperate with [the occupation] and support policies that are generally in line with US interests.”(i) Bremer’s Islamist appointees include: Dr. Ebrahim Jafari Al Eshaiker (Dawa Party); Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (SCIRI); Abdul Karim Al Muhammadawi (Iraqi Party of God in Al Amara); Dr. Mohsen Abdul Hameed (Iraqi Islamic Party); and Dr. Seyyid Muhammed Bahr ul-Uloom, http://iraqcoalition.org (accessed Dec. 15, 2006).
(i) The Washington Post, July 11, 2003, quoted in Lee, Thomas, Battlebabble: Selling War in America. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2005. The same article elucidates the purpose of the IGC: “…a more prominent role in postwar governance is intended to place Iraqis at the receiving end of some of the popular discontent that has been directed at the occupation administration.”
Iraq’s 1959 family law:
According to Huibin Amee Chew, “Aspects of the progressive family law persisted until the eve of the US invasion, when Iraq still remained exceptional in the region. Divorce cases were to be heard only in civil courts, polygamy was outlawed unless the first wife consented, and women divorcees had an equal right to custody over their children. Women’s income was recognized as independent from their husbands’.”(i) The law also restricted child marriage and granted women and men equal shares of inheritance.(ii)
(i) Huibin Amee Chew, “Occupation is Not (Women’s) Liberation Part I,” ZNet, March 24, 2005, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7518 (accessed Dec. 13, 2006).
(ii) Noga Efrati, “Negotiating Rights in Iraq: Women and the Personal Status Law,” Middle East Journal 59(4): 577-595.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad:
In the case of Iraq, “…Mr. Khalilzad had backed language that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes…and allowed clerics to have a hand in interpreting the constitution.”(i)
(i) Dexter Filkins, “Iraqi Talks Move Ahead on Some Issues,” The New York Times, Aug. 21, 2005.
..discriminates against women in numerous ways:
Legalizing Violence against Women
That women’s rights were deemed expendable by the US is obvious from a quick reading of Iraq’s US brokered constitution. Described by US Vice President Dick Cheney as “progressive and democratic,”(i) Iraq’s new constitution effectively legalizes multiple forms of violence against women.
Article 2, Section A: “No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.”
Problem: This article can be used to negate guarantees of women’s rights enshrined elsewhere in the constitution and to sanction domestic violence and other human rights violations against women. The phrase “established provisions of Islam” does not necessarily refer to a codified canon of law, but to dominant interpretations of religious texts, which are made dominant through an assertion of political power. In Iraq today, those who have gained a monopoly on interpreting and applying “Islam” may define human rights abuses against women, such as forced marriage or marital rape, as “established provisions” of the religion.
Article 36: Freedom of expression, freedom of press, and freedoms of assembly and peaceful protest are conditioned on “public order and morality.”
Problem: This article can be used to suppress political opposition to a government dominated by Islamists, outlaw social and political dissent, and quash the circulation of competing interpretations of Islam. “Morality” is always a problematic basis for law. When legislators and judges believe it is immoral for women to choose their spouses, control their fertility, or work outside the home, “morality” becomes an arbitrary justification for human rights violations.
Article 39: “Iraqis are free in their adherence to their personal status according to their own religion, sect, belief and choice.”
Problem: The article calls for marriage, divorce, alimony, inheritance, and other personal status issues to be adjudicated by religious courts, which consistently discriminate against women. For example, in religious courts, a woman’s legal testimony is worth half that of a man’s. Moreover, women will not be “free in their adherence” to a particular set of laws: in most families, the decision of which court to use will be made by men. Women will be particularly disadvantaged in cases of conflict with male family members, such as divorce. Because most interpretations of Sharia pronounce one set of rights for men and another for women, Article 39 sets the stage for separate and unequal laws to be applied on the basis of sex.
Article 89: “The Supreme Judiciary Council will [nominate] the head and members of the
Supreme Federal Court.” And Article 90: “The Supreme Federal Court will be made up of a number of judges and experts in Sharia and law.”
Problem: Nothing in the constitution mandates that the members of the Supreme Judiciary Council be elected. Indeed, they appear to be accountable to no one. Yet, Council members will effectively control the laws by nominating the “experts in Sharia” (presumably clerics) empowered to veto legislation, rescind existing laws (such as the 1959 family law), and determine the constitutionality of new laws governing marriage, divorce, women’s inheritance and property rights, and more. These articles portend an Iranian-style theocratic oversight body, empowered to legalize human rights violations against women.
(i) Dick Cheney, “Vice President’s Remarks at a Luncheon for Arizona Victory 2006,” Aug. 15, 2006, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060815-2.html (accessed Jan. 29, 2007).
“Salvador Option”:
The Salvador Option: Death Squads as US Policy
Iraq is not the first war in which the Pentagon has relied on militias that commit gross human rights violations against civilians. Indeed, the plan to support what are now known as the Iraqi death squads is called the “Salvador Option,” named for the policy used in Central America in the 1980s. Both the Badr and Mahdi forces were trained by the US military under the command of Colonel James Steele during John Negroponte’s stint as US Ambassador to Iraq. Steele and Negroponte worked together in Central America in the 1980s. Steele was commander of the US military advisory group to the government of El Salvador, which used death squads to commit gross human rights violations against the civilian population.(i) Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras, where he oversaw the creation of death squads that tortured and killed thousands of suspected “leftists.”(ii)
(i) United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, “From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador,” Aug. 1, 1993, http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/el_salvador/tc_es_03151993_toc.html (accessed Feb. 5, 2007).
(ii) Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, “Government Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad,” Inter Press Service News Agency, Oct. 19, 2006, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35167 (accessed Dec. 13, 2006).
