Ishtar at the gallows.

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

What kind of government hangs its women? This is precisely what the IraNqi/American government in Baghdad is planning to do. Three women not older than 31 are to be hanged with no trial, no legal counsel, no defence, no witnesses and obscure charges that no one has bothered to elucidate. These three women Zainab, Liqa and Wassan are held in the Khadimyiah prison in a "shia area" (see I caught the virus too) and I would not be surprised if they were raped as well. If you remember well, this is exactly the same place where the late President Saddam Hussein met his fate. At the gallows of the Khadimyiah prison H.Q Another sectarian lynching is about to take place not too far from Imam al Kadhim shrine. Ahmadinajad and Khamenae will be giving Muqtada al Sadr, Al Hakim and Maliki the highest medals of the Quds Brigades for bravery and patriotism (...) Where are the famous Iraqi "democrats" males and females who supposedly underwent torture under the previous regime? How come they have not filled the daily newspapers with their stale, jaded rethoric? Or is it because they have suddenly felt an upsurge of sympathy towards their own sect? Where are the Kanan Makiyas and his like who made millions from lamenting to the Western press about their ordeals in pre-liberated Iraq when they themselves had left Iraq since childhood? It took someone like Saddam Hussein to keep this sectarian filth off our backs and rightly so. In retrospect, everything he has done, mistakes and all, was absolutely correct. Let Amnesty International or Human rights sue me now...

continua / continued