On July 21, the armed forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which rules Iraqi Kurdistan with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, under the protection of United States imperialism, forcibly closed the offices of the Independent Women's Organisation (IWO) and its women's shelter in Sulaymaniyah. The 12 women and five children who were in the shelter at the time were arrested and are still in custody.
The women are all victims of violence, having been mutilated or threatened with death by family members for breaking Iraq's 1400-year-old family laws which allow the legal killing of women who cause a "scandal" and bring "shame" on their family. Since 1991, more than 5000 women have been murdered in Iraqi Kurdistan alone.
The closure of the IWO office and the women's shelter will leave many more women vulnerable to such "honour" killings. The shelter was opened in 1998 and is the only one of its kind in the Middle East. It was supported and guarded by members of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI), and had saved more than 75 women from death or torture before it was closed.
The IWO has been targeted by the PUK because it has campaigned relentlessly against the family laws and had built strong public support for its demands. On International Women's Day last year, the IWO organised a 10,000-strong march of women and men demanding that the laws be repealed.
The attack on the IWO has been accompanied by attacks on the WCPI, in which six members have been killed by government forces and the rest have been forced into exile or underground.
The Committee for the Defence of Iraqi Women's Rights in Australia has launched a campaign to reverse the PUK's latest attacks on women's and human rights in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Rizan Nadir, secretary of the CDIWR, told Green Left Weekly that supporters of human rights in Australia must demand that the Australian government press the PUK to:
immediately release the women and children, without conditions;
guarantee their safety and not allow them to be returned to their families (and almost certain death);
allow the women's shelter and the IWO office to reopen and operate freely, and return all the information seized took from these premises; and
allow progressive organisations, including the IWO, to work legally in Iraqi Kurdistan.
At a June 28 meeting in Canberra with the federal parliament's Women's Rights Sub-committee, the CDIWR was assured that the issue would be raised with all senators and a letter sent to the PUK demanding that it overturn the reactionary family laws and stop the killings of women. However, on August 1, Nadir was informed that the sub-committee will not be raising the issue. It seems that the Australian government's relations with the US are more important than the lives of women and children in Iraq.
The CDIWR is asking Green Left Weekly readers to write to the Women's Rights Sub-committee urging it to honour its promise to raise the issue and to insist that the Australian government urgently press the PUK to meet the demands listed above.
Fax letters to Patrick Regan at (02) 6277 2221 or telephone (02) 6277 4541. Copies should be sent to the United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan (Iraqi Kurdistan has "protectorate" status with the UN) and to Amnesty International, which has a representative in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Please send copies to the CDIWR at PO Box 3051 Parramatta 2140, fax (02) 9633 4428, or email <rizan@ihug.com.au>.
Donations are urgently needed to help secure the health and safety of the IWO campaigners in Iraq, who have been forced into hiding. Please send cheques to the CDIWR and circulate this appeal among your own contacts.
BY LISA MACDONALD