From Iraq

[Khaled]

The Regime Suppresses Women in Iraq for �Honor� Reasons  It has been a month since the Baath regime has launched a campaign against women in Iraq in the areas controlled by its authority. The campaign has headed by �Ali Hassan� in Al-Dourl/Mosul by killing ten women under a pretext of cleansing the mentioned city from �prostitution�.  Fidayeen Saddam (Saddam�s Commandos), the Baath Party Organization and the General Federation of Iraqi Women launched an unprecedented vicious campaign in the centre of Baghdad city/Albayaa district/ 52 Street and Alsaidiaya area where heads were cut off and hanged on the houses� walls of the victims.  The news confirmed that new bills have been passed state terms of 3-5 years-prison sentences for women if proved that she practices prostitution.  The �People�s Assemblies� in residencies areas have been informed and the authority to cast out those women practicing prostitution to another area.   These barbaric and reactionary practices are not confined to women only, but this time the regime has chose the prostitutes to experience its suppressive policy, and insult the human dignity, to intensify and expand its oppressive policy within the current political situations, where the people of Iraq aspiring for freedom and any opportunity to express their opinions and their indignation against the dictatorial nationalist t regime, and aspiring to liberate themselves of this arrogant bloodthirsty regime.   The Baath regime works to intensify its oppression and suppression through cruel practices, which satisfy the reactionary Islamists.  The regime aimed at confronting a phenomenon leading to restore all the reactionary traditions of the Islamic conquests era. It practically practices Anfal operations and enforcing the Quran�s instructions in the centre of Baghdad City to block the way before any progressive movement.  Through these practices the regime confirms that if the sanctions were lifted and its relations were improved with the international community, the people in Iraq will gain nothing.  The regime�s message is �your portion is nothing but oppression, you have to starve, you�re deprived of freedom and right of expression and if you express your indignation, then we have the guillotine and Saddam�s Fedayeen to perform all kinds of mass killing.   In the seventies and amid of eighties, the same regime had officially signed contracts to bring prostitutes from Philippine, Thailand and other countries from south east Asia to Iraq to hire them via the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs in the casinos and night clubs in Baghdad, Mosul and Basrah.  The regime had permitted to practice prostitution officially in the mentioned cities.  Nowadays, the people in Iraq has inflicted with this bloody regime, the economic sanctions and low wages (monthly salary ranges between U.S $ 2 � 3), the fearful inflation and widespread unemployment as well as the oppression and the restoration of the reactionary Islamic laws over the past ten years.  Briefly, the situations of misery, deprivation of political and civil laws have been forced people to practice prostitution and another vocations to provide the food of the day for their children.   The Baath regime �the dictator of the time� resorts to official mass killing of the people in Iraq while its duty is to secure their living and their basic rights in expressing their freedom.  Therefore, the only response to the regime�s practices is to be ousted and replace it with a government that protects the human dignity; we mean a socialist government.   We condemn these barbaric practices of the Baath regime and we implore all the freedom lovers all over the world, human rights organizations, Amnesty International, all women organizations and the progressive forces to condemn it and force the regime to stop and abolish it.  We call to stop associating with the �General Federation of Iraqi Women� and disclose it and ban it from participating in any conference or any international woman meeting.  We have to force this regime to stop these actions and to secure the women�s rights and those who practice prostitution and protect their human dignity and constitute laws that guarantee their rights and their right to form a vocational organization that defend their demands.   Down with the dictatorial Baath regime Long-Live the socialist government   Abroad Organization The Worker Communist Party of Iraq October 29, 2000     Tel: 00358405068360 Fax: 00448701635750 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]