RiverSbend wrote:
The Way It Was For Iraqi Women
Saddam Hussein's brutal regime silenced the voices of Iraq's women and men through violence and intimidation. Iraq’s women suffered human rights abuses for more than two decades under the Ba’ath regime, including rape, torture, imprisonment or even death for opposing the regime.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein introduced a law that exempted men who killed female relatives in defense of the family’s honor from prosecution and punishment under the Penal Code. More than 4,000 women were victims of this law. (U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, January 2002)
Women were not allowed to organize or exercise their political voice except through the regime’s highly controlled structure.
Iraq currently has the highest overall illiteracy in the Arab world at 61% for the population and 77% for women. (UNESCO Arab States Regional Report, May 2003)

- posted by river @ 5:42 AM


[BRIAN’S Comment – this is where our blogger really finds his true gifts as a reporter. All of this is taken from the US govt fact sheet U.S. Policy on Iraqi Women's Political, Economic, and Social Participation. http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/22492.htm Funnily enough this publication was released on August 7 2003. Yet our blogger claims to be writing on July 20. This means one of two things. Either the US govt has produced a fact sheet lifted verbatim from an anonymous Iraqi blogger. Or this blogger has faked their archives and did not in fact produce this on July 20]

RiverSbend wrote:
Is Iraqis "liberated " is the question. Many are saying at least there was order when Saddam was alive.
- posted by river @ 3:42 AM

[BRIAN’S Comment –nothing noteworthy here. Obviously the shorter the better. Our blogger is not one to spend a lot of time on writing himself]

RiverSbend wrote:
Time to Blog!
We finally returned to my Baghdad. The evening walks along the river are much refreshing. We were living with relatives near Erbul for the better part of five months. al-Jazeera kept us informed regarding the war. I gasped and held my breath not believing as we watched Baghdad burning.
posted by river @ 3:06 AM


[Brian's Comment – Does Erbul exist? There is somewhere called Erbil but it’s possible Erbul is an acceptable transliteration from the Arabic. However a google search does not pull up any matches]