Mohammed over at Iraq The Model has some pictures and first hand accounts of a women’s rights protest in Iraq yesterday:
In spite of the heat and the dust that’s covering Baghdad for the 2nd day, more than a hundred Iraqi women representing NGOs and active groups gathered to declare their demands in equality and a civil family and personal affairs law.
The women set a large tent in Al-Firdows square which witnessed the fall of Saddam in April 2003. Under this icon of freedom the women held their signs and demands high.
I met some of the activists who talked enthusiastically about plans for more protests and conventions to show their disapproval of the constitution’s draft because they’re afraid that religion might hijack the constitution and deprive them of their rights.
I’ve also noticed that signs that required two to hold were held by a male and a female in a sign of equality; I liked the idea!
He also details the counter protest by 30 women who want the right to have no rights at all:
The police stood between the two teams to prevent any conflict but one Islamist women yelled “No to immorality and dissolution”.
At this moment our demonstrators were so angry because of this accusation and a fight with words took place, the organizer of the original protest shouted at the black cloud saying “you want to drag us back to the dark ages, we are neither immoral nor dissolute but your way of thinking is backward”.
Mohammed explained to the women fighting for their rights that this counter protest is healthy…it means they are heading in the right direction in Iraq. You would have never seen a counter protest in the days of Saddam. While the Black Cloud, as Mohammed calls the veiled counter protestors, are definately ignorant and disgusting….just as our moonbats are across the seal, this is a good sign.
Omar also blogged last week about another women’s rights 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”.
Normblog blogged a bit on these protests also, go check it out.
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