IRAQ: Event to highlight violence and terrorism against women

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 6 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - Women spoke out against the violence in Iraq on Friday in Baghdad at an event organised to honour aid worker Margaret Hassan and government official A'amal Ma'amalachi, two victims of killings in the last year and a half.

The two women's pictures were displayed on posters emblazoned "No to violence," which hung around the hall at the National Conference Against Violence sponsored by the Iraqi Women's Network and the Association of Councillors for Women's Affairs in Iraq.

Hassan, director of the CARE International aid agency, was kidnapped more than a month ago and reported dead. Ma'amalachi was assassinated on 20 November 2003.

"These women were victims of blind violence and terrorism in Iraq," Thuha Rawhi, an organiser of the event, told IRIN. "This event was a ceremony for two great women who served and loved Iraq."

Most of the women who attended wore black to mourn the dead. They wore small black ribbon/olive leaf pins to represent the sadness and peace of the event.

Attendees said that violence and terrorism was isolating Iraq from the outside world. It was also keeping foreign forces in Iraq and lowered the chance for peace and independence, they said.

"We want our voices to be heard all over the world. We reject all of the violence and terrorism against our Iraqi women," Muna Essam, a member of the Enanan Association for Women, told IRIN.

Others questioned how the two women could have been killed, when Islam, the predominant religion in Iraq, is against all killing.

"I condemn the violence against women," said Shourook Hussein, a member of the Iraq Association for Martyrs Support. "Iraqi men used to support woman. Killing is new in our society. There is no role in Islam saying we should kill women. Women give life."

Both Maysoon al-Damalogi, deputy Minister of Education and Moshkat al-Moa'amen, Minister of Environment, spoke at the event. "Terrorism and violence does not reflect the true face of Iraq," al-Damalogi said. "It remains for us and our covered faces to show [the true face of Iraq] on TV and satellite stations."

Al-Moa'amen asked if there was a way to solve the violence and get rid of terrorists currently destabilising the country.

Hassan helped rebuild the Abn al-Quif spinal cord hospital twice, bringing donations once after US-led forces entered Iraq and looters stormed the building, and secondly after the hospital was damaged when the nearby United Nations building - the Canal Hotel, was bombed on 17 August 2003, hospital director Klidar al-Chalabi said.

Waves of sadness passed over the attendees as they watched films discussing Ma'amalachi's and Hassan's lives.

More than 60 women's groups attended the event, along with representatives from Iraqi unions and hospitals and representatives of the ministries of environment, education and displacement and migration. Relatives and friends of Hassan and Ma'malachi also attended.

[ENDS]