Promoted by Steven D.
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The number of Iraqi’s forced from their homes due to organized campaigns of ethic cleansing has increased from 30,000 to 100,000 in the month of April.
Only a month ago, we posted a video from ABC News which reported that 30,000 Iraqi had been forced from their homes due to sectarian threats. Some have described the situation that has created thousands of Iraq refugees as an organized effort of ethnic cleansing.
Just 20 days after our initial report, the Iraqi Red Crescent estimates that over 100,000 Iraqis have become refugees in their own country. Some suggest that the number of displaced people might be much higher but the current security situation in Iraq prevents even a cursory audit of more than 1000 refugee camps.
This video combines a report from BBC with an Arab news report from Baghdad. The BBC’s James Reynolds reports from one of the ‘tent cities’. Reynolds is told by the Iraqi Red Crescent that “somebody is behind this war. It is highly organized.”
An Arab news channel, reports on protests in Baghdad where refugees demand that the Iraqi government immediately facilitate a secure return to their homes. Iraqi and Coalition forces have not been able to slow the trend of a growing refugee population. Of course, the combined forces can not begin to ensure protection for over 100,000 displaced Iraqis who wish to return to their homes.
Hard-liners of both Shi’ias and Sunnis are violently “cleansing” their respective regional areas of the other’s people. Under Saddam’s rule, mixed neighborhoods of Shi’ias and Sunnis became commonplace. As the so-called “low level civil war” rages, Sectarian interests have sharply divided the country.
This is not the first time that mass numbers of refugees have been forced from their homes since the American occupation of Iraq. A UN report has found that during the initial invasion and occupation, 140,000 Iraqi refugees fled to Syria. That same report concluded that conditions had become worse for Iraqi than under Saddam’s rule. During the November 2004 destruction of Fallujah by American forces, thousands of families were forced to flee to tent cities. These refugees were forced to struggle through the harsh Winter months without heat, food or humanitarian assistance.
Cross-posted at Veredictum.com
Many, Many, Many times “We have broken off the hinges of Pandora’s Box and the cover cannot be closed!!”
What We Started Needs Diplomacy Just To Contain, and the Region to come to the aid of their neighbor’s in Iraq!!
I really wish the bush, who seems to think war is some sort of glorified john wayne movie would be required to actually go to Iraq and try and live in one of those tent cities for several months. Let him see how glorious his so called war on terror is and what he has wrought in his ignorance.
IRAQ: In rising tide of violence, displacement continues unabated
IRAQ: Facing threats, local doctors flee Mosul
IRAQ: Kurdish families flee as Iran shells rebel positions
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BAGHDAD (The Independent) May 6 — Human rights groups have condemned the “barbaric” murder of a 14-year-old boy, who, according to witnesses, was shot on his doorstep by Iraqi police for the apparent crime of being gay.
Ahmed Khalil was shot at point-blank range after being accosted by men in police uniforms, according to his neighbours in the al-Dura area of Baghdad.
Campaign groups have warned of a surge in homophobic killings by state security services and religious militias.
… It is believed Ahmed slept with men for money to support his poverty-stricken family, who have fled the area fearing further reprisals.
The killing of Ahmed is one of a series of alleged homophobic murders. There is mounting evidence that fundamentalists have infiltrated government security forces to commit homophobic murders while wearing police uniforms.
Human rights groups are particularly concerned that the Sadr and Badr militias, both Shia, have stepped up their attacks on the gay community after a string of religious rulings, since the US-led invasion, calling for the eradication of homosexuals.
The occupying forces have the responsibility to provide security for the civilian population of the nation.
Informed Comment by Juan Cole
Removing Saddam is not the same as destroying secular nationalism, and the Americans have done the latter, in some large part on Neocon advice, and if you destroy secular nationalism in the Middle East then you get Islamism.
March 19, 2006 — Readers have been asking me about the stance of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani regarding homosexuality. I take it they are inquiring about this entry at my colleagues’ great Pandagon site.
Let me begin by saying that the charge leveled by some, and mentioned at Pandagon, that Sistani has called for the killing of Sunnis, is completely untrue. The implication given by exiled gay Iraqi, Ali Hili, of the London-based gay human rights group OutRage, that Sistani has called for vigilante killings of gays, is untrue, though it is accurate that Sistani advises that the state make homosexual activity a capital crime; it is also accurate to call this “sick”.
… It should be noted that Sistani does not have or even claim the right to impose a death penalty on individuals for their activities. In contemporary Iraq, the legality of homosexuality would be determined by statute passed by parliament (or by provincial assemblies), and if it were illegal, sentencing would be carried out by civil judges. Sistani is here acting as a jurisconsult, saying what he thinks Islamic canon law requires. But Iraq is not governed, or not solely governed, by shariah or Islamic canon law.
… The Iraqi constitution adopted on October 15 contains a provision that no law be passed directly contradicting the established laws of Islam, but another article says that no law may be passed that is contrary to human rights standards.
≈ Cross-posted from my diary —
Troops Lost In Two Heli Crashes: Kunar Province and Basra, Iraq ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY