Doubts over women suicide bombers

Media Workers against the War
29thAugust 2008

Most British newspapers carried a story on August 26 about a young Iraqi woman who allegedly was a suicide bomber, but who surrendered to police in Baqouba rather than blow herself up.
There were serious doubts about the story’s authenticity, however. For example, the Metro and the Telegraph reported that the circumstances of her arrest remain unclear, with US officials saying she turned herself in but Iraqi police claiming she was caught after behaving suspiciously.
The Guardian, however, published the claims of the Iraqi police without a shred of probing or scepticism. For example, the paper said that the girl’s father “had carried out a suicide bombing”, while Arabic TV stations showed both the girls’ parents sitting indoors.
Moreover, publishing Abu Ghraib-like photos and video of the young woman in such a humiliating situation verged on the pornographic. The Iraqi police certainly appeared to be enjoying the interrogation.
The Iraqi police have been shown on many occasions in the past to have made up stories. The widely-reported claim that women with Down’s syndrome blew themselves up in a market in Baghdad in February was full of holes.
Everyone in Iraq knows that all the police do after the bombing is washout the evidence. On numerous occasions eyewitnesses have said an explosion was a car bomb - with government number plates - while the police and the puppet government claim it was a suicide bomber. The truth is always the first casualty in these incidents.
All these recent claims about Iraqi women suicide bombers are either made by the US or by the Iraqi puppet government of the Green Zone in an attempt to show that the resistance in Iraq is defeated and therefore resorting to desperate measures. But very few people in Iraq believe that these security forces are there to protect them. According to Mohamed Al Dayni, member of the Iraqi parliament, there are at many documented cases of rape committed by members of the Iraqi security forces, yet to be properly investigated or prosecuted.
I telephoned the reader’s editor of the Guardian to lodge a complaint, in a polite but upset voice. The woman who answered the phone breathed a sigh down the phone as I was explaining to her my complaint as if she was bored.
Can I suggest that people write a short email or make a telephone call to the reader’s editor to complain about the Guardian’s article: reader@guardian.co.uk,0207 7134736
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A video clip of the interrogation of 13 year old Raniya right after her public ordeal at the back of a police car without any protection or legal representation has surfaced on Youtube. She is shown being subjected to threats of violence and sexual suggestions.
The transcript of this video can be read in Arabic and in English.