Women's rights at risk in Iraq
U.S. fears conservative backlash in creating new government
Pamela Constable, Washington Post Friday, January 16, 2004
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Baghdad -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.
Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.- backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as Sharia.
This week, outraged Iraqi women -- from judges to Cabinet ministers -- denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues.
"This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer who spoke at a protest meeting Thursday. Some Islamic laws, she noted, allow men to divorce their wives on the spot.
"The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle," she said. "Iraqi women will accept it over their dead bodies."
The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.
The council's decisions must be approved by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said once U.S. officials turned over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make Sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
"It was the secret way this was done that is such a shock," said Nasreen Barawi, a woman who is Iraq's minister for social welfare and public service. "Iraq is a multiethnic society with many different religious schools. Such a sweeping decision should be made over time, with an opportunity for public dialogue."
There is no immediate threat of the decision becoming law, Barawi said, "but after June 30, who knows what can happen?"
In interviews at several meetings and protests, women noted that even during the politically repressive Hussein era, women had been allowed to assume a far more modern role than in many other Muslim countries and had been shielded from some of the more egregiously unfair interpretations of Islam advocated by conservative, male-run Muslim groups.
Once Hussein was toppled, several women noted wryly, they hoped the new authorities would further liberalize family law. Instead, in the process of wiping old laws off the books, they said, Islamic conservatives on the Governing Council are trying to impose retrograde views of women on a chaotic postwar society.
Although it remained unclear which members of the council had promoted the shift of family issues from civil to religious jurisprudence, the decision was made and formalized while Abdul Aziz Hakim, a Shiite Muslim who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was chairing the council under a rotating leadership system.
This week, several moderate council members spoke strongly against the decision in public forums, calling it a threat to both civilized progress and national unity.
On Thursday in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims demonstrated against the U.S. plan to put an unelected, temporary government in power by July 1.
The large crowd, estimated by British soldiers to number as many as 30, 000, marched through Basra chanting "No, no, U.S.A. Yes, yes for elections" and "Yes, yes, Islam. No, no, occupation," according to news service reports. They also held up pictures of Shiite leaders, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's highest-ranking Shiite cleric, who spoke out Sunday against the U.S. outline for transition.
Under the Bush administration's plan, which was approved by the Governing Council on Nov. 15, caucuses would be held in Iraq's 18 provinces to choose representatives to a transitional assembly. The assembly would then choose the provisional government to which the U.S.-led occupation authority will transfer Iraq sovereignty on July 1.
Al-Sistani, however, has said repeatedly that direct elections are the only acceptable means for selecting members of the transitional assembly.
Iraqi leaders and U.S. authorities hope a meeting in New York on Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will help resolve the impasse over al- Sistani's objections.
U.S. fears conservative backlash in creating new government
Pamela Constable, Washington Post Friday, January 16, 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baghdad -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes.
Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.- backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as Sharia.
This week, outraged Iraqi women -- from judges to Cabinet ministers -- denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues.
"This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer who spoke at a protest meeting Thursday. Some Islamic laws, she noted, allow men to divorce their wives on the spot.
"The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle," she said. "Iraqi women will accept it over their dead bodies."
The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as well as by senior women in the Iraqi government.
The council's decisions must be approved by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said once U.S. officials turned over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make Sharia the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
"It was the secret way this was done that is such a shock," said Nasreen Barawi, a woman who is Iraq's minister for social welfare and public service. "Iraq is a multiethnic society with many different religious schools. Such a sweeping decision should be made over time, with an opportunity for public dialogue."
There is no immediate threat of the decision becoming law, Barawi said, "but after June 30, who knows what can happen?"
In interviews at several meetings and protests, women noted that even during the politically repressive Hussein era, women had been allowed to assume a far more modern role than in many other Muslim countries and had been shielded from some of the more egregiously unfair interpretations of Islam advocated by conservative, male-run Muslim groups.
Once Hussein was toppled, several women noted wryly, they hoped the new authorities would further liberalize family law. Instead, in the process of wiping old laws off the books, they said, Islamic conservatives on the Governing Council are trying to impose retrograde views of women on a chaotic postwar society.
Although it remained unclear which members of the council had promoted the shift of family issues from civil to religious jurisprudence, the decision was made and formalized while Abdul Aziz Hakim, a Shiite Muslim who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was chairing the council under a rotating leadership system.
This week, several moderate council members spoke strongly against the decision in public forums, calling it a threat to both civilized progress and national unity.
On Thursday in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims demonstrated against the U.S. plan to put an unelected, temporary government in power by July 1.
The large crowd, estimated by British soldiers to number as many as 30, 000, marched through Basra chanting "No, no, U.S.A. Yes, yes for elections" and "Yes, yes, Islam. No, no, occupation," according to news service reports. They also held up pictures of Shiite leaders, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's highest-ranking Shiite cleric, who spoke out Sunday against the U.S. outline for transition.
Under the Bush administration's plan, which was approved by the Governing Council on Nov. 15, caucuses would be held in Iraq's 18 provinces to choose representatives to a transitional assembly. The assembly would then choose the provisional government to which the U.S.-led occupation authority will transfer Iraq sovereignty on July 1.
Al-Sistani, however, has said repeatedly that direct elections are the only acceptable means for selecting members of the transitional assembly.
Iraqi leaders and U.S. authorities hope a meeting in New York on Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will help resolve the impasse over al- Sistani's objections.
