TADHAMUN تـضـامـن

Tadhamun (solidarity) is an Iraqi women organization, standing by Iraqi women's struggle against sectarian politics in Iraq. Fighting for equal citizenship across ethnicities and religions, for human rights, and gender equality.

جمعية تضامن تدعم المساواة في المواطنة بغض النظر عن الأنتماء الأثني أو الديني وتسعى من أجل العدالة الأجتماعية و حماية حقوق الأنسان في العراق

Friday, October 17, 2008

Iraq allows doctors to carry guns for security!!

Government tries to tempt exiled medics back to the country by permitting them to carry a personal weapon. By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

Friday, 17 October 2008

Iraqi doctors will be permitted to carry guns for personal protection, the government has decided, in a desperate bid to encourage the return of the 7,000 physicians who have fled the country. It is a decision which baffles and enrages those doctors still in Iraq.
"Shame on the government for doing this," says Dr Ali Mahmoud, a thyroid specialist, in al-Kindi Street in west Baghdad. "What use will a pistol be to me if I am attacked by seven or eight gangsters in two cars carrying Kalashnikovs and PKCs [assault rifles]. The government should improve the security situation in general."

The Health Ministry says 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, have been killed since 2003. Well-known doctors have been the prime targets of kidnappers, often seized when responding to a spurious emergency call. Some 600 doctors who had moved to Jordan and Syria have returned to Iraq, heeding government claims that security has improved over the past year. They are also tempted by increased salaries. But even doctors who have stayed in Iraq warn colleagues not to come back.

Dr Fatin Mohammed, an ophthalmologist, says: "I still feel unsafe. Doctors abroad should stay where they are because the situation there is a hundred times better than it is here." Iraqi doctors, and other professionals, concede that security in Baghdad is much improved, but the city remains the most dangerous in the world.

Last Sunday, not a particularly violent day by Iraqi standards, two bombs killed 13 people in the capital, including two schoolchildren beside the road. Snipers, almost certainly from al-Qa'ida, killed two soldiers in the centre of the city. The main news of the day was that two suicide bombers had blown themselves up in Mosul and 3,750 Christians had fled the city.
Baghdad is also one of the strangest cities in the world. In some respects, it has ceased to be a city and has become a series of fortified townships surrounded by tall concrete blast walls with closely guarded entrances and exits. Checkpoints every few hundred yards cause traffic jams. Soldiers and police wield a device that looks like a transistor radio and is meant to detect vapour from explosives. Unfortunately, it also responds to alcohol, perfume and even after-shave lotion, leading to endless delays as cars are searched.

Persuading doctors to return would be an important achievement for the government. The Iraqi heath service has largely collapsed because of the mass flight of medical staff. For almost any medical operation, Iraqis now go to Syria, Jordan, Iran or sometimes Iraqi Kurdistan where some doctors have taken refuge. The most highly qualified and best-known doctors find it easiest to find work abroad and know that they are the most likely targets of kidnappers if they return.

The government and the US military greatly exaggerate the extent to which Iraqis can live a normal life. Shia who fled from Sunni-dominated Anbar at the height of the sectarian killings in 2006 and 2007 are told it is now safe to return but strongly suspect it is not.
The attitude of people in the capital usually depends on where they live. Senior government officials mostly live in the Green Zone where they are well-defended and have permanent electricity. The rest of Baghdad mostly gets by on a maximum of five hours electricity a day. Not surprisingly, the elite are optimistic about the future. The Shia are usually more optimistic than the Sunni. "The security situation is good because of the co-operation of the people with the Iraqi security forces," says Jafar Sadiq, a Shia businessman in the Shia-dominated Iskan area.t.
But the Sunni were the main losers from the fall of Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003 and the sectarian strife that followed. Omar Abdul Latif, a Sunni engineer with a well-paid job in the Housing Ministry, said that after an al-Qa'ida sniper killed a soldier recently "the security forces arrested 23 local men and they have just released 17, all of whom were tortured. One had his teeth smashed and another had his arm broken."

Petition sign and circulate:

Release Iraqi women hostages, victims of terrorism themselves

بعيدا عن الوطن؛ حراك التضامن مع الوطن فنا، شعرا وكتابةً
Away from Home; Memory, Art and women solidarity: you are invited to an evening of poetry and music 22/3/2017 18:30 at P21 Gallery London click here for more details
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Public meeting at The Bolivar Hall, London Sat.14/5/2016 at 15:00 IDPs : Fragmentation of Cultural and National Identity



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Protest the suffering of Iraqi Christians: No to terrorism No to state terrorism.Hands off our minorities. Hands off our people. Shame on the human rights violators on all sides. Assemble 11:30 on 28/7/14 near Parliament Square, near Westminister tube station London. For more past events click here

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Useful links






Halt All Executions! Abolish The Death Penalty!

We women of Tadhamun condemn the persisting practice of arbitrary arrests by the Iraqi security forces. We condemn their arrests of women in lieu of their men folk. These are 'inherited' practices. We are alarmed by credible media reports of the Green Zone government’s intentions of executing hundreds of Iraqi men and women.


For more info click here
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Professor Zaineb Al Bahrani of Columbia University NY speaking at a our meeting on the destruction/damage to historical sites in Iraq

On youtube: Part1
Part 3
Part4
One more video:



Human Rights Watch: No woman is Safe

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Articles published on this site do not necessarily reflect the opinion of WSIUI or its members


المقالات المنشورة على هذا الموقع لا تعكس بالضرورة آراء منظمتنا أو أعضاء منظمتنا


Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD

Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD
Building of 1 500 massive police station !
From the angle of the photo, it is possible to calculate that the complex is being built at E 396388 N 3785995 (UTM Zone 38 North) or Lat. 34.209760° Long. 43.875325°, to the west of the Malwiya (Spiral Minaret), and behind the Spiral Cafe.
While the point itself may not have more than Abbasid houses under the ground, it is adjacent to the palace of Sur Isa, the remains of which can be seen in the photo. While the initial construction might or might not touch the palace, accompanying activities will certainly spread over it.Sur Isa can be identified with the palace of al-Burj, built by the
Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, probably in 852-3 (Northedge, Historical Topography of Samarra, pp 125-127, 240). The palace is said to have cost 33 million dirhams, and was luxurious. Details are given by al-Shabushti, Kitab al-Diyarat.
Samarra was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO at the end of June. The barracks could easily have been built elsewhere, off the archaeological site.--
Alastair Northedge Professeur d'Art et d'Archeologie Islamiques UFR d'Art et d'Archeologie
Universite de Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) 3, rue Michelet, 75006 Paris
tel. 01 53 73 71 08 telecopie : 01 53 73 71 13 Email :
Alastair.Northedge@univ-paris1.fr ou anorthedge@wanadoo.fr