Iraqi Women

BOSTON -- In every story about the aftermath of the Iraqi election, there seems to be the same sentence punctuated by the same question mark. What does the victory of a Shiite Muslim alliance mean? Will the new constitution be written according to religious laws? Will the clergy determine the rights or the lack of rights for women? Questions about Iraqi women rumble across an America that sent its daughters as well as its sons to battle. They echo in the words of the president, who has promised that "young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming."

DAMASCUS, Syria - These refugees aren't in camps. And that's making it more difficult for aid workers to address their growing needs. The great majority of Iraqis who have come to Syria have settled in and around the capital. Most have disappeared into the cosmopolitan population of this Middle Eastern hub; many are intentionally keeping their profiles low, for fear of being caught, detained, and sent back to Iraq. The pattern is the same in Jordan, Lebanon and other Iraqi neighbors. "It's completely different from a camp situation," says Imran Riza, who represents the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan.

Three Iraqi women facing a daunting task came from Baghdad to East Baltimore for practical advice. The three, all newly minted government officials, got the lessons they sought yesterday. In return, they gave their Baltimore hosts a couple of impromptu lessons about the realities of war and the stubbornness of hope. Fatin Ouda Al-Saeda had studied Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales at the University of Baghdad. Evelyn Michael Rasho learned computer programming in Japan in the 1980s.

PHILADELPHIA -- Americans' perceptions of Iraq are molded by scenes of horrendous violence; few get to see the bravery and humanity of Iraqis living under hellish conditions. So I wish millions could have watched the International Women's Media Foundation present its 2007 Courage in Journalism award last week to six Iraqi women journalists who have risked their lives in the Baghdad bureau of McClatchy Newspapers. (Brave Mexican, Ethiopian and Zimbabwean journalists were also honored.) But the ceremonies could not be televised or photographed, because if the Iraqi women's faces were seen back home, they or their families could be targeted by terrorists for having worked with Americans.

The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq recently issued a frightening report documenting the growing practice of public executions of women by Shiite militias. One of the report's more grisly accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by soccer field and hung from the goal post. They pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running, trying to defend his sister. He was also shot and killed. Sunni extremists are no better: Organization of Women's Freedom members estimate that at least 30 women are executed monthly for honor-related reasons.

Who are the Iraqis? Look for a primer on Iraq through tomorrow in the Today section.%Women in Iraqi society By no means emancipated by American standards, Iraqi women have more freedom than their Saudi sisters. Women can drive and go to clubs and dances. In the cities, women are seen in Western-style clothes. The veil is worn in the more traditional, rural areas.About 10 percent of the work force is women. They include teachers, physicians, pharmacists and factory workers. Labor laws include equal pay, paid maternity leave and child-care at the workplace.

IN IRAQ, women account for nearly 50 percent of the country's 24 million people. Among Iraqis ages 15-64, they number about the same, or 6.5 million. So it stands to reason that the United States would want women involved in the reconstruction of postwar Iraq and named to positions of authority. Three women have been named to the interim Governing Council established by the U.S. authority and others sit on local city councils. But for coalition forces, elevating the status of women in this male-dominated, Muslim society is a goal as problematic as it is admirable.

MOSUL, IRAQ -- A second Iraqi woman emerged yesterday leveling charges of rape against Iraqi security forces, further breaking an entrenched taboo here about disclosing sexual violence and further undermining public perceptions about the security forces. The Sunni woman alleged that Shiite soldiers raided her house in the northern city of Tall Afar, interrogated her and raped her repeatedly while videotaping their actions. She said the soldiers also threatened to assault her two teenage daughters before one of them intervened.

A Saudi woman in her black chador gave Karen P. Hughes a lesson in Mideast diplomacy that the U.S. envoy should have gotten before she visited the kingdom this week: Not everyone wants to live as an American. As the Bush administration's newest ambassador for public diplomacy, Ms. Hughes is supposed to be improving America's image abroad, especially in the Muslim world. But, in sharing her hope that Saudi women would be able to drive one day, Ms. Hughes assumed that the women in her audience, professionals mostly, wanted that too. Her presumption sounded too much like, "We know best."

DAMASCUS, Syria - These refugees aren't in camps. And that's making it more difficult for aid workers to address their growing needs. The great majority of Iraqis who have come to Syria have settled in and around the capital. Most have disappeared into the cosmopolitan population of this Middle Eastern hub; many are intentionally keeping their profiles low, for fear of being caught, detained, and sent back to Iraq. The pattern is the same in Jordan, Lebanon and other Iraqi neighbors. "It's completely different from a camp situation," says Imran Riza, who represents the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan.

MOSUL, IRAQ -- A second Iraqi woman emerged yesterday leveling charges of rape against Iraqi security forces, further breaking an entrenched taboo here about disclosing sexual violence and further undermining public perceptions about the security forces. The Sunni woman alleged that Shiite soldiers raided her house in the northern city of Tall Afar, interrogated her and raped her repeatedly while videotaping their actions. She said the soldiers also threatened to assault her two teenage daughters before one of them intervened.

The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq recently issued a frightening report documenting the growing practice of public executions of women by Shiite militias. One of the report's more grisly accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by soccer field and hung from the goal post. They pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running, trying to defend his sister. He was also shot and killed. Sunni extremists are no better: Organization of Women's Freedom members estimate that at least 30 women are executed monthly for honor-related reasons.

In 9 Parts of Desire, Heather Raffo lifts the veil and shows the faces of women rarely seen on stage or in the news. The women are eight Iraqis and one Iraqi-American, composite characters drawn from life. Raffo gives voice to these women -- whose own voices have often been silenced by fear or worse -- in her moving, one-person show, which ran off-Broadway for nine months and is now at Washington's Arena Stage. If you go 9 Parts of Desire continues through Nov. 12 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. S.W., Washington.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency yesterday in the southern oil hub of Basra and said he would deploy an Iraqi army division to quell violence in the nation's second-largest city. A predominantly Shiite Muslim seaport with a Sunni Arab minority, Basra has for more than a year suffered assassinations, attacks and counterattacks by militia and religious groups vying for power. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Hashimi, who accompanied al-Maliki to Basra yesterday, said Shiite militias had begun attacking one another.

A Saudi woman in her black chador gave Karen P. Hughes a lesson in Mideast diplomacy that the U.S. envoy should have gotten before she visited the kingdom this week: Not everyone wants to live as an American. As the Bush administration's newest ambassador for public diplomacy, Ms. Hughes is supposed to be improving America's image abroad, especially in the Muslim world. But, in sharing her hope that Saudi women would be able to drive one day, Ms. Hughes assumed that the women in her audience, professionals mostly, wanted that too. Her presumption sounded too much like, "We know best."

WASHINGTON - President Bush, working to bolster fading U.S. support for the war in Iraq shortly after a car bomb had killed six Marines in Fallujah, reassured Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that "there's not going to be any timetables" for withdrawing American troops. "You don't have to worry, Mr. Prime Minister, about timetables," Bush told al-Jaafari during a news conference after the two leaders' first White House meeting since al-Jaafari took office. "We are there to complete a mission, and it's an important mission."

PHILADELPHIA -- Americans' perceptions of Iraq are molded by scenes of horrendous violence; few get to see the bravery and humanity of Iraqis living under hellish conditions. So I wish millions could have watched the International Women's Media Foundation present its 2007 Courage in Journalism award last week to six Iraqi women journalists who have risked their lives in the Baghdad bureau of McClatchy Newspapers. (Brave Mexican, Ethiopian and Zimbabwean journalists were also honored.) But the ceremonies could not be televised or photographed, because if the Iraqi women's faces were seen back home, they or their families could be targeted by terrorists for having worked with Americans.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- I tagged along the other day with Bernard Kerik, the dynamo former New York City police chief who is in Baghdad retraining the Iraqi cops. We sat in on a class where a U.S. police trainer and his translator were going through the basics of how to start an interrogation. The Iraqi policemen, who four months ago thought removing a suspect's fingernails was how to start an interrogation, dutifully took notes in their U.S.-provided notebooks. What struck me most, though, was the new "mission statement" for the Iraqi police, posted next to the blackboard in English and Arabic.

BOSTON -- In every story about the aftermath of the Iraqi election, there seems to be the same sentence punctuated by the same question mark. What does the victory of a Shiite Muslim alliance mean? Will the new constitution be written according to religious laws? Will the clergy determine the rights or the lack of rights for women? Questions about Iraqi women rumble across an America that sent its daughters as well as its sons to battle. They echo in the words of the president, who has promised that "young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming."

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With the fate of a British hostage in the hands of Islamic radicals who beheaded two American contractors this week, U.S. and Iraqi officials denied yesterday that they were about to free a female prisoner whose release the kidnappers have demanded. Contradicting an announcement from his government in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said that no decision had been made to free Rihab Rashid Taha or another female scientist accused of playing key roles in Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.