January 7, 2004
Women for a Better World
OWFI calls for the right to maintain its offices
To: Mr. Jalal Talabani
Leader of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Previous President of Iraqi Governing Council
Re: Threats against OWFI women activists' office in Kurdish North of Iraq
Mr. Talabani
We were informed that your security officials came to our office in the city of Suleimaniyah twice during this month questioning our credibility and claiming that we lack the legal status to run our organization in the areas controlled by your forces.
Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq was founded in Baghdad in June 2003 after 35 years of Baath's dictatorship and oppression, where political freedom and the right to organize are presumably our granted rights in post-Saddam Iraq.
The threats that your security forces directed to our activists &endash; some of which questioned our political affiliations and others about our legal status - were totally unacceptable forms of suppression and censorship.
Although they were expected under the Baath dictatorship, still we did not face these harassments in any other city in Iraq in this post-war era.
Our organization has been known to be the most radical voice that defends women against honour killings and inequalities imposed by male-chauvinism. This misogynist mentality and Practices have killed and still spare thousands of women especially in Kurdistan, the Northern part of Iraq, which is partly under your rule.
Your opposing to our work in those areas reflects a determination to keep women inferior and discriminated against, a position that is unacceptable in this post-Saddam era. It also confiscates the rights of thousands of women in Kurdistan to organize in ranks that defend them most and lead their struggle for equality with their fellow-men. This equality can not be achieved without our determined struggle.
Kurdistan of Iraq had attained a very bad credit regarding human rights of women during the nineties. It is time to change that situation. We believe that we will lead this change to better constitutional, social and political status for women.
Whoever stands in our way will be held responsible by the international community of confiscating our constitutional right to organize and to practise our political freedom.
We announce the year of 2003 as the irreversible end to oppression and discrimination against women. We demand that your security forces no longer threaten our office and that they put some effort into correcting their misogynist past by not creating obstacles for our work.
Yanar Mohammed
Chairperson of Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq
12/26/2003
cc: Amnesty International NY, Human Rights Watch NY, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, The Olof Palme International Center-Stockholm, International Center for Transitional Justice NY, Human Rights Center Berkeley CA, BBC World Service-Women's Hour, UN Ponte Per Italian Humanitarian NGO, CNNi , UNIFEM in New in New York, Christian Peace Team, United Press International, Christian Science Monitor, Herald News North Jersey, Freedom House (Survey of Women's Freedoms in Middle East and North Africa) NY, U.S. Mission to the United Nations-Political Affairs, Safe Horizon-Anti-Trafficking Program, V-Day(until The Violence Stops),Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, OSI Network Women's Program, Arab Institute for Human Rights-Tunisia, Equality Now Organization- London, The Humanist Marxists, WBAI Feminist Radio, Al Jazeera TV, Members of Iraqi Governing Council, Paul Bremer (Administrator of CPA)