Louise Nousratpour
Friday March 26, 2010
The Morning Star
Iraqi women activists have marked the third anniversary of the brutal stoning of a Kurdish teenage girl in northern Iraq by demanding action against all forms of misogynist violence.
Du'a Khalil Aswad was dragged to her death in broad daylight by her male relatives on April 7 2007 for daring to fall in love with a boy outside her religion.
Activists and academics gathered in London's SOAS university on Thursday night to remember all victims of "honour" killings.
Du'a's murder was caught on mobile phone cameras and sent to "every woman" in the area as a warning, Houzan Mahmoud of Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq told the meeting.
"We are here to send a strong message to the perpetrators that we will not rest until they are brought to justice and until all women are safe," she vowed.
Ms Mahmoud blamed the increased violence on the US-backed "ethno-sectarian religious" government, adding: "People's identities have been politicised to divide and rule the population while reactionary family laws are introduced to keep women oppressed."
SOAS lecturer and activist Nadja Al-Ali warned of a "huge backlash" against women's rights in the Middle East since the so-called war on terror was unleashed in 2001.
"The US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq was pitched as liberating women but the louder George Bush shouted about women's right, the greater was the backlash," she said.
Ms Al-Ali argued that the deterioration of women's situation in Iraq and the shift from a secular society to a deeply religious one could be traced back to 1990 and the start of the 13-year-long UN economic sanctions.
She said: "The sanctions was in itself a form of violence and contributed to intensified state oppression, an explosion in religiousity, and rolled back women's rights."
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