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A
file photo of an Iraqi woman in a US jail in Iraq.
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LONDON,
February 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Nearly two
years after the US-led occupation of Iraq, women there are no better
off than under the rule of ousted president Saddam Hussein, the human
rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday, February 22.
In
a report entitled “Iraq -- Decades of Suffering,” it said that the
systematic repression under Saddam had been replaced by increased
murders, and sexual abuse -- including by US forces, Reuters news
agency reported.
Washington
promised that the overthrow of Saddam would free the Iraqi people from
years of oppression and set them on the road to democracy.
But
Amnesty said post-war insecurity had left women at risk of violence
and curtailed their freedoms.
“The
lawlessness and increased killings, abductions and rapes that followed
the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein have restricted
women's freedom of movement and their ability to go to school or to
work,” the London-based group said.
Amnesty
also regretted that “honor killings” were still prevailing in
Iraqi society.
“Within
their own communities, many women and girls remain at risk of death
from male relatives if they are accused of behavior held to have
brought dishonor on the family,” Amnesty said.
Islam
is
strongly against the man-made concept of “honor killing”
as it holds every soul in high esteem and does not allow any
transgression upon it.
It
does not allow people to take the law in their own hands and
administer justice, because doing so will be leading to chaos and
lawlessness.
Raped
by US Forces
Amnesty
said several women detained by US troops had spoken in interviews with
them of beatings, threats of rape, humiliating treatment and long
periods of solitary confinement.
“Women
have been subjected to sexual threats by members of the US-led forces
and some women detained by US forces have been sexually abused,
possibly raped,” it added.
The
Pentagon said it had not seen the report, but took any allegations of
detainee abuse seriously.
“We
have demonstrated our commitment to ensuring that kind of behavior is
identified and dealt with properly,” spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel
Joe Richard told Reuters.
An
Iraqi woman disclosed her rape ordeal in an interview with the
London-based Al-Hayat newspaper last July.
With
tears rolling down her cheeks, she told the paper how she was stripped
by her “liberators” of the most precious thing an Arab and Muslim
women can have: her virginity.
Britain’s
mass-circulation The Guardian revealed on May 12 that US
soldiers in Iraq have sexually humiliated and abused several Iraqi
female detainees in Abu Gharib.
In
its May 10-17 issue, the Newsweek said that unreleased Abu
Gharib abuse photos “include an American soldier having sex with a
female Iraqi detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex
with juveniles.”
The
Iraqi abuse scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after
the CBS news network published several shocking photos of Iraqi
detainees tortured and sexually abused by US soldiers.
In
a damning report presented to the US administration last February,
before the outbreak of the scandal, US Major General Antonio Taguba
found numerous “sadistic,
blatant and wanton criminal abuses” at the prison
complex.
