Women protest in Najaf!

For the 1st time in Najaf, women go out in an independent protest demanding their full rights and condemning the parts of draft of the constitution that threatens the state of women rights.
The protest which took place in front of the office of the Najaf human rights organization yesterday was reported by radio free Iraq:

The responses to the draft that was announced on Al-Sabah on July 26th varied in the Najafi street between cautious agreement and total disagreement but one group of women went to the streets in a protest that is considered the first for women in Najaf.

The report also included an interview with Ms. Intisar Al-Mayali who organized the protest.

When we asked Al-Mayali about the reasons behind the protest and the demands of the participating women, she said:

"Today we have women from 17 civil society organizations was organized to show that we strongly reject the parts of the proposed constitution that are against our rights as Iraqi women and this protest is in support of the memorandum we sent to the CDC in which we clarified our demands".

Then she details the women's demands and concerns:

"We want to make clear that we're against any attempt to revive the notorious 137 personal affairs law which was born during the period of Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim when he was the head of the GC.
We want a civil law to govern issues like marriage and inheritance and we also want to reactivate the related international treaties that Iraq had already signed and approved long time ago and even the existing civil law that we support needs to be modified and improved in a way that matches the needs and rights of Iraqi women and we insist that Islam must not be the only source of legislation".

Webcast of the report can be found here.

What's even more interesting is that those women come from the strictly conservative city of Najaf where the SCIRI won the provincial elections and appointed one of their men as governor, yet those strong women had enough courage to publicly claim equality with men, condemn forcing Share'at laws into the constitution and also criticized Al-Hakim in spite of all the power and influence he has in Najaf.

Michael Yon writes about (and photographs) an operation he has lived in Mosul last Monday.
Terrorists planning to assassinate Iraqi Police officers were caught and killed in that operation.
Don't miss it!

The Sunni parties appear to be preparing for a full scale participation in the coming elections:

Arab Sunnis have already started preparing the slates with which they're going to enter the electoral competition later this year.
It’s believed that Adnan Addulaimi (the former head of the department of Sunni property) will be among the top figures on these slates.
A spokesman of the 'general conference for the Sunni' said that the conference expects a turnout of around 5 million voters among the Sunni Arabs and added that the focus now is on nominating degree carriers, tribal sheiks and clerics as well as academic female figures to be their candidates for the elections.

From Al-Sabah.

There's no doubt that lots of parties who consider themselves to be representative of the Sunni will try to win as many as possible from these anticipated 5 million votes but as far as now, there are no qualified figures that can really represent the majority of the Sunni and get their trust.

One should remember that in the January 2005 elections, most of the Sunni who participated in the elections gave their votes to Allawi (a She'at) while Sunni candidates like Adnan Bachachi (former GC member) got only a few thousand votes and this gives us the impression that Sunni have no problem in voting against their sectarian emotions in the favor of a strong leadership which is the form of leaderships they always seem to prefer.

Some members from the national assembly (mainly from the SCIRI and the Sadr trend as far as I know)have been trying to make a big issue out of the recent Kuwaiti movements to draw the border lines between Kuwait and Iraq and they reached as far as calling these movements an aggression.
The Iraqi governemnt on the other hand is trying to calm them down and stop the case from assuming a bigger size than it actually deserves.

Haider Al-Mousawi spokesman of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi said that the fabricated recent crisis with Kuwait has political aspects designed by known political figures and it's being fed and used by some parties to harm the relationships between the two countries and he confirmed that the behavior of the Kuwaiti authorities was not a violation and it was within the limits of the Security Council resolutions and he said that tense statement made by some Assembly members are absolutely needless especially that the government is sending a delegation to discuss the situation and there will be another visit by Ahmed Chalbi to Kuwait soon to confine the situation and restore friendly relationships.

The statement was given to Al-Ra'ee Kuwaiti paper.

In the same regard, PM Jafari in an earlier TV appearance called for self-control and stressed that it's irrational to escalate tensions with our neighbors at this time and that such issues can and should be solved through diplomatic means.

I was extremely shocked and saddened when I saw on the news a few minutes ago that Steven Vincent was found dead in Basra.
Mohammed and I were closely following his reports from Basra and we really enjoyed reading them.
Now the bastards took him away. The terrorists try to silence every voice that tells the truth but they can not succeed as there will be always people who are ready and willing to write and speak the truth and they will see that our pens are stronger than their guns.
We lost a fine writer today, God bless his soul and our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

"Resistance" conference; a grand failure.

A group of those who still long for the "good old" past have arranged for a meeting for the different factions of the "Iraqi resistance" whether that resistance was Ba'athist, Salafi, She'at or pan-nationalist doesn't really matter as long as they share the same dream of bringing Iraq back to the dark ages of tyranny and repression.

Of course the conference attracted some opportunists who saw in the latest meetings between American officials and some militant groups a chance to gain influential positions in the political process by representing these groups.
Anyway, the objective of the conference was to unite the efforts of the powers that oppose the American presence and the current administration in Iraq (or any future administration other than the Ba'ath) and to form a front that can defeat all the present trends in Iraq that are led by "American agents".
The conference-unsurprisingly-drastically failed and they even couldn't release a final statement.

Syria didn't host the conference because her position these days is already critical and the Syrian Ba'ath cannot take more risks so the choice (or the offer) was made to hold the conference in Lebanon and that was most probably a Syrian idea since Syria and the Ba'ath in general still have good presence in Lebanon represented by the pan-Arab movements and the Lebanese Ba'ath party.

The sponsor was the "center for Arabic unity studies" which is stationed in Lebanon and led by Iraqi professor Khair-Iddin Haseeb; one of the tireless defenders of pan-Arabism and who still thinks that armed resistance will certainly win.
A first look at the list of attendants (100 of them) was enough to tell me what kind of a conference it was; a pathetic assortment of people who do not know anything about dialogue meeting to have a dialogue. All they know and believe in is the language of guns so I was positive of their upcoming failure, and it happened.
I don't want to bother you with a list of a hundred names that you don't know but to keep you in the scene, those 100 attendants could be classified as follows:

1-Members of the leadership of the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party.
2-Patriotic democratic trend (a pan-Arab group).
3-Members of Muqtada trend (delegation led by Hassan Zargani chief of foreign relations in the Sadr trend).
4-Regualr guests of Al-Jazeera and other Arab media networks.
Full list in Arabic can be found here.

The attendants were trying to put plans for post-liberation Iraq (liberation from what the call western occupation) considering that kicking coalition troops out of Iraq is something they don't need to worry about because they (the armed "resistance") are already triumphing so their main concern was how to run Iraq's affairs after "liberating it" and the basic issues that were scheduled for discussion included rebuilding the army (the old one), rebuilding the ministry of information and solving the Kurdish issue.

After the 1st session, objections came 1st from the armed groups themselves where they said that no one had the right to represent them "we are the ones to lead Iraq and we are the only body that has the right to decide for the Iraqi people and there shall be no politics or negotiations of any kind".
As a matter of fact, the objections came earlier than this in the form of announcements posted on some "resistance" websites.
I actually find it funny (and of course stupid) to say that they're the one and only legitimate representative of the Iraqi people when they oppose all kinds of politics while 60% of Iraqi voted in the January elections and more are willing to vote in the next elections!

I guess this clearly shows that they do not represent more than an extremely low percentage of Iraqis which is the same percentage that helped Saddam repress the rest of the people.
That statement of the armed groups left the other groups in bewilderment; who's going to fill the security vacancy if America left? UN peace-keeping forces? Or forces from the Arab league?

The armed groups answered by "NO" for both suggestions as they believe that both institutions are under American influence and they helped America invade Iraq(!!).
The representatives of the armed groups said that they are capable of controlling Iraq and that there's no need for any kind of foreign troops.
Those who had a few neurons functioning in their heads were not convinced by this response. Actually even the Sadrists were shocked when the heard those people talking in the name of Saddam and Ezzat and referring to them as if they were the legitimate leaders of Iraq.

The Sadrists and the patriotic democratic trend asked the Ba'athists to give up on the past regime and apologize to the Iraqi people for the atrocities committed by the Ba'ath as a condition to resume cooperation.
But the Ba'athists refused and the Sadrists left the conference and so did the patriotic democratic trend.
Even professor Haseeb who arranged for the conference chose to sneak out and announced that his center is just a research institution and they happened to be sponsoring this conference. At this time the Jazeera regulars were getting aboard their flights on the way back to Europe.

The objective of the conference in the first place was to form a national front to lead Iraq after it's liberated from the colonial west and its Iraqi agents but the conference ended also calling for the formation of that front!

Related Arabic links here and here.

Its a sign!

The leader of freedom and democracy and the defender of human rights in the Middle East the elected President his Excellency Bashar Assad met the man of humanity and peace, the pioneer human rights ranger and the Ghandi of the 21st century British MP George Gallawi.

The meeting took place recently in Damascus and the two great men discussed the situations of the Middle East and Iraq and they emphasized the need to have a plan to control the spread of terrorism after identifying its reasons and motives in order to replace the existing wrongful policies adopted by some countries which are a waste of time and focus on delusional terms that add nothing to the efforts needed to fight terrorism.
From AlSharq Al-Awsat (Arabic).

Bravo Gallawi!
You do know how to invest in the right place at the right time.
Here's another Arab tyrant under siege, feeling isolated and desperate for any political or moral support from any Western figure and I expect Assad to also be very generous with anyone who provides him with this kind of support which he so badly needs.
Is history repeating itself here?!!

Constitution update.

It was expected that the suggested draft of the constitution which I posted several day ago would fuel arguments and serious discussions in the corridors of the National Assembly and the government and from what I heard and read in local media and from some information that leaked from some politicians, I learned that some of the upsetting articles of the draft have been changed or omitted while some other articles are still being discussed.

First of all there's the clause that says "5-The Iraqi state is part of the Islamic and Arabic worlds or (the Iraqi state is a founding member of the Arab league and the Islamic conference organization)" and this one is more likely to be omitted after strong opposition from the Kurdish block as well as clear public disagreement with this clause.
Actually the observer now can see a growing interest in the concept of "The Iraqi Nation" among the people here as this concept gives better guarantees for equality among citizens regardless of their ethnic, religious backgrounds and consequently empowers patriotism which is so needed in Iraq at this stage after Iraqis lost the sense of patriotism after decades of living like strangers and 3rd or 4th class citizens in their own country.

Then there's the clause that suggested the addition of Persian as a main ethic component of the Iraqi society and this one has been omitted after objections from many MPs including many from the She'at coalition block.

And regarding the most critical issue which is defining the role of religion in the constitution, there's also a good possibility for changing the part that said "2-Islam is the official religion of the state and it is the main source of legislations…" to something like "Islam is …..and it's a main source of legislations" or "…is one of the sources of legislations" and either way is going to somehow protect the rights of women and human rights in general and at the same time satisfy the demands of religious parties and frankly speaking I don't think it's possible at the moment to have no mention of Islam in the constitution.

Another controversial point was the distribution of revenues of important resources (mainly oil money) among the federal counties (or provinces) and the central state and apparently they have settled on a resolution that assigns 90% of these incomes to the central state while the remaining 10% would go directly to the province to be invested by the local authorities in projects that focus mainly on the infra structure or according to the needs of the province.

And regarding the question of whether an Iraqi citizen has the right to carry another nationality in addition to his Iraqi one, it's been agreed upon that it is possible to have two nationalities but that citizen will not have the right to become president or Prime Minister of the country.

Anyhow, tomorrow is going to be decisive and tomorrow we will get to know if additional time is needed or not and perhaps we will see more parts of the draft being affirmed, changed or argued about.
It's only a matter of less than 24 hours till we get to know what's really going to happen.

Some security-related news.

Multinational forces and Iraqi forces have together prepared a "well studied" plan to seal the exits of Baghdad and other provinces and provide security for Iraqi voters on the day of referendum on October 18; the plan came under the name "The bolting bobcat" said the commander of the 256th brigade of American troops.

The American officer also said that American troops have absorbed the lessons from previous experiments especially that of the January elections and he pointed out that Iraqi forces are now more capable of handling more sophisticated security tasks than they were before after substantial improvements in quantity and equipment.
"Areas around Baghdad like Abu Ghraib and Doura will take higher priority in our operations" said the officer who also stated that sharing intelligence and establishing good communications among the units of the multinational and Iraqi forces were the main focus of the plan.

Meanwhile, local police force in Falluajh is back to action after 18 months of absence.
Brigadier Salah Al-Aani from the Fallujah police force announced that a first group of 240 policemen have started conducting security tasks in the town and he encouraged the residents to cooperate with the this force and help his men stabilize the town.

Translated from Al-Mada.

In another development, Iraqi Army is about to receive the 1st 5 T-72 tanks which are part of a total of 77 main battle tanks of the same model.
These tanks are going to be the main power of the Iraqi Army's armored division.

Are we going to let them win?

Did Syria and Iran win in their indirect war on Iraq?
This question has been occupying my thoughts in the last few days and to reach an answer, we should first know the goals of the US in the region and whether these goals have been failed or they're merely witnessing slow progress?
And are we going to see some determination on reaching these goals or are we going to see strategic changes from offense to defense in the plans?

I think the changes in the Middle East do not originally represent an American desire but they're more like a need that imposed itself on the US and the world as instability in this region negatively affects many parts of the world.
Troubles have spread from the Middle East to get on planes and hit targets in New York, and wore explosive belts to blow up trains in Madrid and London and some have even went as far as hitting targets Indonesia.
The reasons (and theories) that explain the spreading (or export) of these troubles may vary; some say that the West's policy toward Israel is what inflamed the situation.
Ironically, the same people who adopted this theory a few years ago now say that war in Iraqis the main reason.

But I do believe that dictatorships are the main reason; the Arab regimes didn't accept Israel as a neighbor, of course not because they care about the Palestinians and their interests as everyone knows how Palestinians are treated in Arab countries and how many thousands on them were killed in Jordan and Lebanon and perhaps Arabs killed more Palestinians than the Israelis did.
Obviously, Arab regimes and leaders didn't like Israel because it's a democratic state and its presence in the region can threaten their thrones.

Actually I think that Arabs who live inside Israel and the Joulan heights know this better than I do and I don't think they'd like to replace their Israeli passports with passports from any Arab country; they know the difference and even people living inside Arab countries began to see the difference after the revolution in communications and news flow.
In the last 50 years, Israelis went to the ballots more than ten times and 'faces' change there all the time while we are still facing the same faces that took over power thirty years ago.
What I wanted to say is that after the fall of Saddam, Arab regimes began to look at Iraqi as a second threat; as another emerging democratic project that must be foiled and stopped from growing.

So, the dramatic change that took place in Iraq was seen by the neighboring regimes and their terrorist allies as an imminent disaster; it hit their theory in the heart.
They were thinking that the US would not have the will or courage to attack but they discovered shortly after that the US was so determined to do the change and that's why their counter attack had to be a fierce one because it became a matter of existence to their regimes and their age-old ideology which they thought no one would dare to mess with.

Sadly enough, these regimes and terrorists were more prepared for the post-war phase than the US was and they the roles distributed and everyone knew his duties even before the fall of the statue.

-First there was the terrorist organizations that lost an important source of support when Saddam fell and thus they had to do a great deal of the fighting so they joined the remains of the Ba'ath and hired mercenaries to prepare for a long war with the US and the Iraqis that favored the change, So Al-Qaeda had a big role in recruiting suicide bombers and fighters and worked with some Iraqi groups to organize shelters and logistic support for the fighters.

On the other hand, the Syrian-Iranian alliance didn't stand idle as well as other Arabic regimes; every party had its role in the war and they were all more prepared than America was.

-Syria provided funds and logistic support for the Iraqi terror groups, the regime there offered them shelter and training facilities and also facilitated their passage to/from Iraq and the Syrians actually didn't have to pay a penny as Saddam and his gang had smuggled billions of dollars to Syria months before March 2003.

-Iran is planning to foil the democratic process in Iraq taking advantage of democracy itself "Okay, you want to play democracy? We're in"
So Iran decided to provide full support to the She'at religious parties and help these parties reach power and perform a coup on democracy using democracy itself and in some cases there have been some limited military interventions too.

-The rest of dictatorships used directed biased media to make the change look like a total evil plan that destroyed Iraq and will extend to become a war against Islam and Arabs.
The most effective message they sent was "People, this change is against your interests and it will bring catastrophic consequences upon you".
The reactions of the dictatorships and the terror organizations was massive and well organized and they frankly succeeded to some extent in hindering the progress in Iraq and changing the direction of the democratic process.

These partial successes encouraged Bashar Asad and some others feel victorious and say things like "we don't think that the US would repeat the Iraq scenario in other places, this seems far from possible at the moment because the US has failed in Iraq".
He actually wanted to say "We made the US fail".
Is this really the case now?

I would say that the war in Iraq would not stop unless it is taken to another front and our strategy must focus on chasing terrorism and striking its bases and strongholds instead of waiting for it to strike.

The objectives of our mission cannot be accomplished without changing the Syrian and Iranian regimes in any possible way because the battle in Iraq will not stop until guns are heard in Syria and Iran.
These two regimes are looking for half-solutions that prolong their stay for several more years and of course they've learned from Saddam who managed to stay in power for 12 years after 1991 by making full use of half-solutions.
Our current situation cannot tolerate further postponement and every delay will reflect negatively on democracy in Iraq and peace in the Middle East and I fear that the signs of changes that are emerging in Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt would be buried in their cradle before they see the daylight IF the regimes felt safe again.

Bottom line is and to answer the question I put in the beginning of this post I say; No, they haven't won yet but if these two regimes cannot be changed soon (whether on the hands of inside or outside powers) then their chances of winning will be much greater.
While the world has to fight the terror-supporting regimes we will keep fighting terror inside Iraq and only this level of cooperation can save Iraq, the region and the world from the counter attack of the terror-dictatorship axis.

Big Pharaoh and the Egyptian Sandmonkey are preparing for an anti-terro protest and a 'candle light vigil' for tomorrow in Cairo.
I hope the turnout will be really big this time.

An emergency conference...

Iraq's constitution drafting committee called for an emergency summit for the leaders of political parties and religious factions in Iraq in order to override the remaining obstacles that are hindering finishing the final points of the constitution.
The chief of the CDC, Humam Hammodi mentioned that they hope that the final draft will be available after the proposed Saturday conference which will be attended by Iraqi president Jalal Talbani and the president of the Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani.

This piece of news was mentioned this morning on several Iraqi newspapers and this call for a big conference obviously came after the semi-complete draft was released last Tuesday which was faced by a lot of disagreement and objections in the Iraqi street and from several political parties especially those of minorities.

The main points that are going to be discussed in this conference will-in my opinion-include the shape of the federalist system of the state, the issue of considering Islam the main source of legislation, the name of the state as well as case of considering Persian ethnicity among the components of the Iraqi society.

I have expressed my disagreement with the draft in the last post and actually I noticed that most of the people I met in the last couple of days share the same concerns I have and many people are disappointed by the weak performance of the CDC.
Let's not forget that many of the public opinion polls that were conducted in Iraq in the past two years showed that a maximum of 15% of the voters would favor an Islamic state, so if the Saturday conference failed in dealing with the above points I mentioned, then I expect this constitution will be rejected by the voters.

If this is going to be the final draft, then I'm going to say "NO".

This morning, Al-Sabah had the exclusive right to publish the current draft of the constitution.
This draft will be submitted to the national Assembly to get the Assembly's approval before putting it to the October referendum.
Of course the draft is tool long to fully translate and it would've taken me a few more days to do that so I have chosen the most important parts of it and translated them.
Here are they for you to read:

*Words in between brackets are still not agreed upon by all members of the CDC.
*My comments are in Italics.

Section One:
Fundamental principles:

1-the republic of Iraq (the Islamic, federal) is a sovereign, independent country and the governing system is a democratic, republican, federal one.

The Islamic republic of Iraq!? NO WAY.

2-Islam is the official religion of the state and it is the main source of legislations and it is not allowed to make laws that contradict the fundamental teachings of Islam and its rules (the ones agreed upon by all Muslims) and this constitution shall preserve the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people (with its Shea't majority and its Sunni component) and respect the rights of all other religions.

This is the deadliest point if approved; Islam or any religion cannot and must not be the main source of legislation.

3-The Iraqi community is made of two main ethnicities; these are Arabic and Kurdish and of other main ethnicities; these are Turkmen, Chalideans, Assyrian, Armenian, Shabak and (Persian) and Yazidi and Mendayeen, all of which are equal in rights and duties of citizenship.

Why is it that no one heard of this ethnic component before? Or at least lets say that no one heard them (if they exsited) say that they want to be recognized as Persian Iraqis!

4-Arabic language is the official language of the Iraqi state and Kurdish language is (together with Arabic) the official language in the region of Kurdistan and for the central government, regions and provinces have the right to choose any local language as an additional official language if the majority of its citizens approved the choice in a referendum.

5-The Iraqi state is part of the Islamic and Arabic worlds or (the Iraqi state is a founding member of the Arab league and the Islamic conference organization).

Do we really need to put that in the constitution? After all, our "Muslim and Arab brothers" brought us nothing but troubles.

6-Sovereignty is for the law and the people is the source of authorities, practicing it through direct general secret voting (or by secret direct voting and referendum) and through its constitutional institutions.

8-The Iraqi state is one entity in land, people and sovereignty.

9-The family is the bas of the community and the state preserves the family's genuine Iraqi identity that is based on patriot, religious and ethical values and the state also is responsible for protecting maternity and childhood and looks after the youths and provide the appropriate environment to assure the development of their skills and capabilities.

I don't know for sure what they mean by saying "the state preserves the family's genuine Iraqi identity that is based on patriot, religious and ethical values" but it doesn't sound great anyway

10-Basic freedoms and rights that are stated in the constitution are granted for everyone and no law that undermines them shall be made (to be attached to no 2).

11-All ideologies that include racism, terrorism and "takfir" (or promote or publicize these concepts) are banned and especially the Saddmist Ba'ath and this one cannot be part of the political plurality of the state.

12-Internal and foreign relationship of the Iraqi state are to be built on principles of peace and cooperation with all nations, especially the neighboring ones.

13-Iraqi state commits to the international treaties unless if this could result in a conflict with this constitution.

14-Iraqi armed forces in all their forms and systems are part of the Iraqi people resembles it ethnic, religious and sectarian composition.
These forces are under the command of the civil authorities. Its duty is to defend the Iraqi state and must not interfere with political affairs and has no role in transition of power.
Using these forces in oppressing the Iraqi people is banned.

15-the religious references (the clergy) enjoys its independence and advisory position as a highly valued religious and national symbol (there are some reservations on this clause).

16-Holy places and shrines in the Iraqi state possess a legal character for what they represent as religious and cultural beings and the state has to preserve their sacredness and to protect the freedom of practicing ceremonies in these holy places.

17-the center of Baghdad is the capital of the Iraqi state.
Designating another city as a capital is possible under a special legislation.

18-The flag of the state, national and religious holidays are to be chosen and identified according to a law.

Section Two
Basic rights and public freedoms

1-All Iraqis are equal before the law regardless of gender, race, color, opinion, religion, sect or belief and discrimination based on these differences is prohibited.

2-Every Iraq has the right to live and be safe and enjoy freedom and privacy and it is not allowed to deprive any individual of these rights unless in accordance with the law and after a judicial order from a specialized judicial authority.

3-All Iraqis are to have equal opportunities in accordance with the law.

4/a-Iraqi nationality is a right for every Iraqi and a citizen may not be stripped of this nationality for any reason.
It is the foundation of the individual's citizenship and the source of his rights and duties and a citizen has the right to claim it back if it was taken from him.
Having more than one nationality is allowed.

4/b-The Iraqi is everyone born for Iraqi parents and a non-Iraqi women married to an Iraqi man has the right to claim Iraqi nationality after staying for 5 continuous years in Iraq after the marriage.

4/c-Iraqi nationality must not be granted for political reasons or in any way that could change the demography of the state.

4/d-The related processes are to be regulated by laws.

5-It is not allowed to exile an Iraqi citizen from his country and he cannot be prohibited from traveling inside or inside Iraq.

6-The state protects the basic rights of women including equality with men in accordance to the Islamic share'at and the state helps the women in creating balance between their duties within their families and their duties within the community.

Equality according to Islamic Share'at? Thia is totally new to me!

7/b-It is prohibited to employ children in demeaning jobs or in any job that does not suit their ages.
The state has to take enough measures to protect children

8-Private property is a protected right and every Iraqi has the right to use, invest and benefit from this property according to the law.
Private property cannot be confiscated unless for a case that serves public benefits and only after paying a fast and sufficient compensation.

9-Human freedom and dignity are protected by the law and no one can be arrested or interrogated unless by judicial orders.
All sorts of physical and mental torture or inhuman treatment are prohibited and any confession made under torture or threats is of no judicial value and those who have their rights violated have the right to as for to be compensated for the damage that was inflicted.

10-Papers of preliminary interrogation must be submitted to the specialized judge within 24 hours after the arrest is made and this 24 hour period is subject to renewal for one time only and for the same duration.

11-Every person has the right to express his opinion in any means granted by the law provided that order and ethics are not breached.
The state provides the following:
a-The freedom of press, journalism, advertising and peaceful demonstrations.
b-The freedom to establish organizations, political parties and union as well as the freedom of joining these entities.

12-The freedom of belief and religion is protected and so is the freedom to practice them in accordance with the law provided that the practice does not violate order and ethics.

13-Every person has the right to enjoy personal privacy and this includes:
a-The privacy of homes is protected and it's forbidden to search or enter homes unless in accordance with the law.
b-Conventional mail, E mails, faxes and phones are to remain secret and private and they must not be monitored unless there's a judicial or security need for that.

14/a-Crimes and punishments are to be defined only by the law.
b-The judiciary is independent and is liable to nothing but the law.

15-Every one has the right to claim justice in a court of law.
16-The right of defense is protected in all stages of trials.
17-The defendant is innocent until he's found guilty in a court of law.
18-Trilas are public unless otherwise stated by the court.
19-A defendant may not be tried for the same charge more than once unless new evidence appeared and no punishment harsher than the one valid at the time of committing the crime can be imposed.
20-Punishment is restricted to the criminal.
22-No law functions in a retrograde way unless otherwise stated by the law.
23-the defendant may not be forced to give a statement for any reason.
24-The court appoints a lawyer for the defendant and on the state's expense if the defendant was not able to pay for a lawyer.
25-The best law for the defendant is to be used.

27/b-The establishment of civil society organizations is prohibited if these organizations could harm the community.
The formation of militias or paramilitary organizations is prohibited whether they were in secret or in public.

Full document in Arabic.

This was all I could translate in the time I had and I guess this is what Iraqis care about most.
The parts I left are talking about the relationship between the regions/counties and the central administartion and other subjects like the rules for nominating the members of the supreme court and the duties of the different components of the government and these I will probably translate later.

Now back to what I think of this draft,

Although this document will be subject to further negotiations and modifications, my first look at it made me decide that I'm going to say "NO" to this constitution.
Islam has been introduced in many clauses and not only Islam, sectarianism was introduced into the draft in a disgusting way and frankly speaking, such things will make me feel so unsafe if results of the referendum came positive for this draft.

However, what eases my worries is that we're going to have the chance to say "YES" or "NO" and all of us know that it's much better to allow this critical step to take the time it needs than to end up with a useless (or even harmful) constitution.
And anyway, even this draft is way better than the 'no constitution' state we lived in for decades.

The other reassuring factor here is that amendments can be done two years after the constitution is 1st approved and then once again four years after that.

We have fought for a long time to reach the point where we can write a constitution that serves our needs and protects our future from oppression and dictatorship.
I say it once again, we're practicing AND learning democracy at the same time and the people may be fooled once but they can't be fooled all the time.

Iraqi women discuss the constitution

Day by day and as the deadline for finishing the draft of the constitution approaches, we see more hot debates and more active public activities and more interaction with this historic event that will decide the future of life on the lands of Mesopotamia and it's interesting (yet not surprising to me) that daily-life concerns couldn't stop Iraqis from engaging discussions and debates when it comes to writing the constitution.

In the latest episode of "Dostorna" (a program produced by the Iraqia TV and literally means "our constitution) an interesting debate took place among Iraqi women; they discussed constitution, Share'at and how these subjects deal with women rights and needs and the difference in view points was actually obvious between secular/liberal women and religious/conservative women.

The show was attended by an exclusively female audience and questions were directed to the main characters of the show (4 women; 2 secular and 2 religious sitting against each other to the left and right of the stage.
The debate was direct and frank and dealt with many hot topics in Iraq which included controversial topics like hijab, basic freedoms (according to civil constitutions), equality between men and women and the percentage of women's representation in the National Assembly.



Right now, there's a big argument about the "137" law (or the social affairs law) which the Islamists failed at passing once and now it seems that many Iraqi women are determined to stop the Islamists from passing this law this time and actually many of the secular women expressed their disapproval of the attitude and opinion of some female Assembly members who were accused of "acting against the interests of other women".
A female colleague told me this yesterday:

"How could female assembly members support law 137? They want a full vote in the assembly but they want other women (and themselves) to have only half a vote and be treated as half a person before law!!"
Her observation is very interesting and requires stopping at because frankly speaking, I see that some women are acting against women's interests to satisfy the parties they follow which are of course religious parties.

However, what's good here after all is that we can all share and exchange thoughts in public and without fear. We're learning democracy and practicing it at the same time and this can make our steps rather slow and confused but I believe that we have passed (forever) the times where a dictator can rule Iraq.
The people will rule from now on and although the people might make a wrong choice once, they cannot go completely corrupt.

Smaller rats are on the way to trial too.

Earlier today, Al-Arabiya TV exclusively broadcasted another hearing session for the "Iraqi Special Tribunal" and this time the judges interrogated a number of Saddam's senior aides and the questions were concentrated on a few main cases related to the massacres against Iraqis especially in the South and in Kurdistan back in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Sources from inside the tribunal declared that they're planning to put the defendants to trial within the next 4-6 weeks.
The group that was interrogated today included:

-Ali Hasan Al-Majeed (Chemical Ali) who confessed this time that he led operations against "political targets" in the south when he was in charge of the Ba'ath organizations in that region.

By the way, Ali was a sergeant before Saddam promoted him to general and appointed him minister of defense!

-Watban Ibrahim Al-Hasan (Saddam's half-brother; a cop who became a minister of interior!).


-Taha Yassin Ramadan (vice president tyrant).

-Samir Aziz Al-Najim (deputy chief of the military wing of the Ba'ath and a former assassin).

-Ahmed Hussain 'Kdhayir (secretary of the presidency).
Barazan Ibrahim Al-Hasan (Saddam's other half-brother and chief of the Mukhabarat).

Update: Iraqi Expat shares his thoughts on subject and provides some links too.

A great story of cooperation and friendship:

ALI BASE, Iraq – When a crew of instructors deployed here to teach Iraqi airmen the finer points of flying and maintaining a C-130 Hercules, they knew they had a monumental task in front of them. But what they found was something
unexpected.

Slowly over several months, Iraqi and U.S. Airmen have
developed life-long friendships with the very men they previously
called enemies. “Our instructors are more than just
a friend,” said Iraqi Air Force Capt. S., a maintenance officer
with Squadron 23. “We are like brothers...

Full story in pdf here (scroll down).
Hat tip: ITM reader.

Brave Iraqi female soldier patrols Haifa street on foot.
Isn't she amazing?
Story from Publius.

Sharm Al-Sheikh attacks update.

Al-Hurra correspondent in Sharm Al-Sheikh said that he had exclusive information from trusted Egyptian security sources confirming that 9 men from Pakistan entered Sinai recently before the attacks took place and mentioned that contacts with the authorities in Pakistan have shown that the passports were forged.

Also it was reported that Egyptian police informed the British police that it's most likely that the explosives that were used in last nights' attacks were similar to those used in the 7/7 London's attacks.

From Baghdad to London to Sharm Al-Sheikh...

I woke up this morning to find myself facing the news of the latest attacks in Sharm Al-Sheikh.
What are the targets? What are the goals? And what should we do about this wave of terrorism that is plaguing various parts of the world east and west?
These were the questions circling in my mind this morning so I would like to discuss the matter with you in this post.

I see that the London attacks would have had more profound influence over the public opinion in the world in general and in the UK in particular but last night's came-in my opinion-as *another* reminder of the nature, ideology and goals of the terrorists.

I could sense fear in the words of Britons mixed with serious thinking that the attacks were designed just to drive the UK of Iraq and I started hearing people considering compromising with the terrorists to get out of this bloody situation.
Unfortunately many people fail to realize (or remember) that terror is targeting the human civilization without discrimination and although some attacks may seem connected with specific conflicts, the reality remains that terror is waging a full scale war against our way of living whether we're actually living it or dreaming of it or in a broader way; any other way of living that doesn't match their vision.

Let's not forget that we're not living in isolated islands anymore, we all share the globe and our interests are connected in a way that makes it almost impossible to stay away from the effects of what's happening in other parts of this world.

Okay, suppose that the UK decided to leave Iraq, what's next?
Egyptians leave Cairo, Londoners leave London, or I leave Baghdad??

Apparently, we're facing the terrorists' version of globalization where every democracy is heresy and every man or woman smoking, playing soccer or not wearing hijab or a beard is infidel.
They want their dark culture to dominate the world and they know that the only they can do that is by destroying every other culture they don't agree with.

The threat is spreading and maybe faster that we were expecting and at this moment any appeasement or compromising with the terrorists will only give them the chance to grow more dangerous and gain more bargaining power.

What are we going to give up in the future?
Do you think paying a sustainable tribute can solve the conflict for good?
NO, there will be other *ambitions* in the future and those will be harder to satisfy.
The terrorists from all over the world are uniting against us, they have put a fixed goal and a clear enemy and that's us and our dreams.
Shame on us if we couldn't unite against them.

Who I pity most are the regimes and media that supported the terrorists and apologized for their doings.
They don't realize that eventually they won’t be able to keep themselves away from the fires of this war.
Their short sightedness is making them stand against their strategic allies and support the evil efforts of their inevitably future (if not current) enemies.

On the other hand I do believe that these waves of attacks in Egypt and London as well as Al-Qaeda's threat to Europe prove that their plans in Iraq are not working out.
Actually, terrorists in Iraq are paying a very high price but they're getting very little in return and their resources are being depleted while Iraq is getting stronger every week and whatever they're inflicting is not yielding the desired effects and in my opinion that's why they're trying to export their attacks to other targets they consider vulnerable or of high value.
This change in plans and tactics was made after the terrorists realized that their plans in Iraq have been rendered sterile and that was only because they were faced with tremendous determination and patience from Iraqis and their allies.

*Check out Big Pharaoh and Egyptian Sandmonkey for comments and updates.

This post has been updated with photograph that was taken by Iraqi blogger Sabah Jasim immediately after the terrorist attack that that killed a hundred Iraqi civilians in Mussayab city last week.

Take a look at the reality of the "resistance".