From Sadr city with "Love"...

By Layla Anwar

08/04/07 "Arab Woman Blues" -- -- I did not feel like blogging tonight but was somehow compelled.

As usual, I can't sleep. How I wish I can run away from it all...

Some of you who follow my blog on a regular basis, know of Kamel's story.
I mentioned in my post "Fresh from the Iraqi oven", that Kamel is held in an American prison supervised and guarded by sectarian shia militias, on charges of "insurgency".

I also mentioned that they demanded extortion money in exchange for his release and their signing a piece of paper saying he is not an insurgent- which is the truth.

We finally managed to collect the requested sum of 2 Million Dinars. The money was paid and we got double crossed. They took the money and did not release Kamel. Only God knows what is happening to him right now.

Money is not the only thing they extort from us. Sex read rape is another.

I read a story today on IRIN and am reprinting in its entirety.

Such kind of story is not uncommon at all. You hear them daily...in free Baghdad.
So here it is.

BAGHDAD, Mother of three Um Muhammad al-Daraj, 35, recently went through a traumatic ordeal to try to save her husband’s life.

She told IRIN her husband was kidnapped by militants who had accused him of supporting the insurgents. After two days without news of her husband, Ahmed, two people came to her home and ordered her to follow them to meet her husband, who was reportedly being interrogated.

“I didn’t think twice and left my children with my neighbour. I was desperate for any news of Ahmed and they drove me to a distant neighbourhood where my husband was supposedly being held.

“After half an hour’s drive we reached [predominantly Shia] Sadr City and my legs were trembling because I know how dangerous the area is and the guys with me didn’t speak a word.

“They asked me to enter a disgusting-looking house and told me to wait. A rude man came into the room and bluntly told me that I had two choices: have sex with him and get my husband released or return to my home and never see Ahmed again.

“I was shocked and started to cry. I fell to the ground trying to kiss his feet and begged him to release my husband and not to treat me badly.

“The man told me that he would be back in 15 minutes and by that time would want to know my decision. In those minutes I hated my beauty and myself. I know that if I had been an ugly woman this wouldn’t have happened to me, but the life of my husband was in my hands.

“After 15 minutes - I was crying the whole time - the man came back and repeated the question and I didn’t have any option than to accept, in order to save Ahmed’s life, even knowing that after that they might kill us both.

“I had to forget my honour to save my husband’s life. It was the most terrible 20 minutes of my life. I just felt pain and wanted to vomit all the time. In the beginning I tried to refuse but was hit in the face and had to cry in silence, while asking God’s forgiveness.

“After that he told me to put my clothes on and the same two men drove me home, with tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t look at my children because I felt dirty. I didn’t even know if my husband was going to return.

“Later that evening Ahmed appeared on the doorstep with signs of having been hit in the face, and when I went to kiss him he told me that I was dirty and that he was going to divorce me as he had been forced to watch the whole scene and preferred to be killed than see his wife sleeping with another man, even if it was to save his life.

“Two days later he left home and went to his parents’ house and said that soon I would get the divorce papers. Even now I cannot believe that losing my honour to save his life was taken by him as a betrayal.

“Now I’m alone, without a job or husband, with three children to look after. Sometimes death is the best way to end suffering.”


I have covered several instances where sunni women are raped, mutilated in their genitalia, then murdered and dumped in some street.

The culprits are always the same. The sectarian militias and the sadrists in particular - renowned for their sadism and their sexual perversions.

So the above story does not surprise me. As I said, you hear stories like that daily. I am glad it made it to your screens.

I am glad it made it to your screens because whatever we say is taken with so much doubt, I wonder what is it exactly you need to see or have to believe?

Well to hell with what you believe or do not believe.

It is torturous enough to learn about what your brave boys did in Abu Ghraib and Mahmoudiah amongst other places...From sodomy, to rape, to burning, to pissing...and whatever other perversions your brave boys are bred on...

It is humiliating and painful to learn that Iraqi women are forced into prostitution to feed their families...

It is ugly enough to learn that Iraqi women are increasingly suffering from poverty, disease, violence, grief and sexism...

But to keep hearing stories about your "own kind" doing that to you is too much for anyone to stomach.

Sunni women have become easy targets for both the occupation forces and the sectarian shia militias.

The formers vent their sadism, spite, racism and hatred of Arabs and Muslims on their female victims with the aim of debasing, humiliating them...till their ultimate death.

And the latter vent their rancor, hatred, sectarianism, violence, sadism, spite, vengeance, vindictiveness, envy and their inferiority complex...on their victims till their total destruction.

The sectarian shia militias are the enemy number.1 along with the American occupying forces. Their brutality emanates from a sick mind and a sick soul. These psychopaths are a public danger.
But guess what ? Your equally psychopathic government has put them in place to rule what once was a great nation.

They are put in place to debase, humiliate, rape, torture, murder the essence of Iraq i.e her Women.

The West's hatred and the East's hatred for women have been combined and poured over and into Iraqi women and in particular sunni Iraqi women.

Mind you shia women who are considered too Arab Iraqi for the militias taste are also the target for scorn and exclusion.

I sent this story to my lifelong friend Zaynab ,a shia.
Zaynab is a Phd holder and a brilliant woman. She is one of those thousands who benefited from the former educational system and was given a grant to undertake her postgraduate studies abroad.
Zaynab was laid off her job not long ago. Her boss who is also a member of a sectarian militia told her she was too Arab for his taste. The fact that she is more educated than him thanks to the former government, did not go well with him either.
Zaynab was constantly harassed until she was made to hand in her resignation. Now, Zaynab feels like a pariah within her own circle.

Her reply to this story was : " ...By Allah, Layla, if the Imams Ali, Hassan and Al Hussein were alive today, they will burn this Sadr city and raze it to the ground...These people have nothing to do with Islam or shi'ism. They are "huthala'a."

Now, "huthala'a" is difficult to translate. It means lowest of the low. Synonyms would be vermin, scum, filth, garbage, trash...words along these lines.

I agree with Zaynab. And I add that anyone who supports or backs them ideologically or otherwise is even worse than them.

Having these "people?" called the "new" Iraq is an insult. An insult to every single decent Iraqi men and women - whatever their creed.

Sometimes I am so disgusted with it all, I feel like throwing up non stop...

I secretly wish that someone would invent me a new nationality, a nationality that does not exist and is specially tailored for people like myself who no longer recognize, accept, or stomach what has become of this country.

Sometimes my disgust is so great that I have this persistent fantasy assailing my mind, the fantasy of vomiting it all...

Vomiting it all over the government, the ministries, the militias, the Green Zone, the peshmergas, the politicians, the prisons, the torture centers, the American camps and their soldiers...then the fantasy transports me to the Pentagon, the White House...and all the way up to the Statue of Liberty.

Oh yes, vomit my way from Sadr city to New York City. One humongous pool of vomit. And even then, my disgust will not abate...

Layla Anwar, Who am I ? The eternal Question . Have not figured it out fully yet . All you need to know about me is that I am a Middle Easterner ,an Arab Woman - into my 40's and old enough to know better . I have no homeland per se . I live in Iraq,Lebanon,Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Egypt simultaneously .... All the rest is icing on the cake. http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/