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Global protests denounce US occupation
of Iraq
Compiled by Seán Marquis
Oct. 1 (AGR) — Tens of thousands of protesters demanding an end
to the illegal occupation of Iraq took to the streets of London, Athens,
Paris and other cities around the world on Sept. 27, denouncing the
United States and Britain.
London’s was the biggest protest, drawing nearly 100,000 people
according to organizers.
“No more war. No more lies” proclaimed a banner pinned to
the pedestal of Nelson’s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square,
where demonstrators rallied after a march through the city. People of
all ages, from gray-haired couples to toddlers in strollers, joined
the stream of protesters marching from Hyde Park.
Some young marchers chanted, “George Bush, Uncle Sam, Iraq will
be your Vietnam!”
“I don’t believe the war with Iraq was right and the proof
is we haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction,” London
protester Emma Loebid, 20, said. “I think they should hand Iraq
back to the Iraqis and get the troops out.”
The Women’s Contingent led by the Iraqi Women’s League issued
a statement demanding that: “Essential rebuilding must be paid
for by those who have bombed our [Iraq’s] water supply, hospitals,
and other infrastructure. The Iraqi people must not be prevented from
establishing our own federal democratic regime in which we can practice
our complete freedom and independence. The outrageous sell-off of Iraqi
resources must stop immediately, and all barriers to the sovereignty
and integrity of Iraq must be removed. Saddam and all his gang must
be put on trial.”
The group added that: “We extend our heartfelt support to women
in other countries, including in Palestine and Afghanistan, who are
also suffering the consequences of war and occupation.
The media have recently uncovered the reality of the Saddam Hussein
regime by showing mass graves in which bodies even of children and the
elderly were buried. They do not mention that if the countries now occupying
Iraq hadn’t armed and supported that regime as it carried out these
atrocities against us, we could have got rid of him much earlier.”
Irish Army officerreturns medals
Edward Horgan, retired army commandant, and United Nations (UN) Peacekeeper
returned his medals awarded by the UN and the Irish Defense Forces in
protest at the presence and use of the defacto US military base at Shannon.
The medals were handed back at Government Buildings, Merion St., Dublin,
during a Sept. 27 peace demonstration, organized as part of the Global
Day of Action against war.
Amongst his returned medals was the United Nations special Medal for
Peace awarded to all military peacekeepers on the occasion of the Nobel
Peace Prize being awarded to the UN in 1988.
Of more significance is the original Commissioning Scroll presented
to Horgan in September 1973, on the occasion of being commissioned as
a Second Lieutenant into the Irish Defense Forces. This document is
signed Eamonn de Valera as President.
Horgan said: “While I have held each of these items as treasured
reminders of my service to the people of Ireland and to United Nations
peacekeeping, I feel obliged in conscience to return them because of
the dishonorable conduct of the Irish government in abandoning Irish
neutrality, contrary to international law, by participating in the war
against Iraq in March 2003, thereby actively assisting in the commission
of crimes against humanity.”
“Today, 27th September 2003,” he added, “the war is still
in progress. Ireland is still participating in this war by facilitating
the passage of US troops and munitions through Ireland, and by providing
a de facto US military base at Shannon airport. Our participation in
this war against Iraq, and this loss of Irish neutrality has not been
approved by the Irish people, and poses a very serious threat to international
peace and global justice.”
A little over 2,000 people marched from Parnell Square to Merrion Square
in Dublin. The march was called by the Irish Anti War Movement, the
Peace Alliance and The Peace and Neutrality Alliance.
Around the world
Demonstrators, including those in London, also added the Palestinian
cause to their campaign.
Some 3,000 people marched in Paris, where a wide banner read, “American
Imperialism: Take your bloody hands off the Middle East.” Others
held posters that read “Wanted: George W. Bush — War Criminal.”
In Beirut, thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian protesters demanded
that US forces leave Iraq and that Israel to stop its attacks in the
Palestinian territories.
Outside the US Embassy in Athens, demonstrators hurled bottles and yogurt
at riot police. About 3,000 protesters, chanting “Occupiers Out”
and “Freedom for Palestine,” joined the rally.
In Spain, thousands of people carrying anti-war banners, banging drums
and wearing white smocks marched through the streets of Madrid, Barcelona,
Seville and Malaga.
In Seoul, thousands of activists protested a US request to send South
Korean troops to Iraq. Protesters chanted “No war!” and carried
banners saying “End the occupation in Iraq”
Some 4,000 protesters in the Turkish capital, Ankara, shouted slogans
and unfurled banners to support the Palestinian cause and demand an
end to the US-led occupation of Iraq. Hundreds more gathered at a similar
rally in Istanbul and burned American and Israeli flags.
An estimated 2,000 demonstrated in Brussels, while crowds numbering
as few as 50 to as many as several hundred rallied in several German
cities.
An estimated 300 protesters met in Veracruz Park in Santa Barbara California.
Various organizations and individuals carried bull horns and signs delivering
messages such as “George W. Bush: Chicken Hawk in Chief” and
“Support Our Troops, Not the Policy.”
Protesters marched their way through downtown Santa Barbara while restaurant
patrons flashed peace signs through windows at march participants.
Santa Barbara City Council candidate Das Williams said he was there
to march against threats to freedom made by President Bush’s policies.
“It is important to take a stand,” Williams said, “even
when the rest of the country is being deceived by the call to trade
freedom for security.”
Sources: Associated Press, Daily Nexus, Germany Indymedia,
Independent (UK), Indymedia Ireland
Lawal death by stoning sentence overturned
By Toye Olori
Lagos, Nigeria, Sept. 25 (IPS)— A Sharia appeals
court following Muslim law has overturned the conviction of Amina Lawal,
a mother of four charged with adultery who was facing a sentence of
death by stoning.
The court held that Lawal’s confession was inadmissable, and that
her rights of defense had not been properly recognized in the lower
court.
Sitting in Funtua, a town some two hours drive from the capital Abuja,
the Court, Thursday, further declared that Sharia had not been introduced
in Katsina State, northern Nigeria, at the time Lawal committed the
offense. The ruling was applauded by rights activists.
“That is good news. Even if she had been convicted, there are still
options left for her to appeal to. We are happy that it is the court
process that found her not guilty rather than the (Katsina state) governor
pardoning her after she had been sentenced. It is good news,” said
Okeke Anyia of GADA, a Lagos-based rights group.
An official of the Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative
(WRAPA) based in Abuja, which provided legal support for Lawal also
applauded the ruling.
“The Secretary General of our organization called me some minutes
ago from Funtua that we have won the case. I am very happy for Lawal
and for our organization. All our efforts were not in vain,” said
the WRAPA official.
Toro Oladapo, National Coordinator of Women In Nigeria (WIN), described
the judgment as commendable. “I am happy no precedent was set about
stoning a woman to death for adultery. I commend all those who supported
us locally and internationally in the fight against Lawal’s death,”
she told IPS in a telephone interview Thursday.
“We thank God, she has been set free. I am happy we did not have
to go begging the government to pardon her,” she said.
A coalition of 30 rights organizations in Nigeria Wednesday made a last
minute appeal to save Lawal’s life. In a statement, signed by the
program officer of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center,
Titi Salaam, the coalition condemned what it described as the gender
bias in the judgments and attitudes of the Sharia courts in Nigeria.
“Only women alleged for committing adultery under the Sharia are
being prosecuted and sentenced. Men are always let off the hook for
want of evidence,” the statement added.
A group of South African women, led by the women’s wing of the
ruling African National Congress (ANC), demonstrated outside the Nigerian
Embassy in Pretoria last week in attempts to force the government to
pardon Lawal.
Catholic Bishop of Lagos, Olubunmi Okogie reminded those campaigning
for the stoning to death sentence that the first and most fundamental
right of human beings is the right to life.
While government has the right to punish offenders, promote the security
of citizens, preserve life and ensure good governance, it should not
venture into blood-letting in any form since God and the Nigerian constitution
forbid it, Okogie said.
Lawal, 31, was convicted in March 2002 by a lower Sharia court in Funtua
for adultery for giving birth to a baby girl more than nine months after
being divorced. She appealed the ruling to the Upper Sharia court hoping
to get her sentence quashed. However, on Aug. 10 last year, the court
confirmed the death sentence, to be carried out after Lawal weaned her
eight-month baby. The sentence of death by stoning was put off until
later this year or next. Lawal’s counsel, Aliyu Musa Yawuri argued,
at the second appeal hearing late August, that under Islamic law, there
is a provision that a woman could carry a “sleeping embryo for
a period of five years commencing from the date of divorce. Lawal was
divorced for about 10 months when she delivered her child, so the court
ought to have applied the law in her favor.”
Yawuri also told the court that Lawal had withdrawn a confession of
guilt made in March last year.
But the prosecution argued that the confessional statement could only
be withdrawn if an alternative explanation for her pregnancy was submitted,
which he said was not done. The five judges fixed Sept. 25 for judgment.
Hundreds of thousands of signatures were compiled by rights activists
both in Nigeria and overseas, including the United States, in efforts
to save Lawal’s life.
In fact, rights groups were worried when the Upper Sharia court upheld
the death sentence. “We are very worried that in this particular
case, the judgment is not, for instance, compatible with the Nigerian
constitution and Nigeria’s obligation to international instruments
and [the] African Charter on Human Rights. We are hoping that the woman
will be given the right to enjoy her right of appeal,” said Steven
Callow, spokesperson for Amnesty International in August.
Lawal’s counsel and rights activist, Hawa Ibrahim, said Nigeria
is a signatory to international agreements and that such death sentences
should not be carried out. She described the judgment by the lower Sharia
court as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
But the government had already assured that nobody would be put to death
through stoning, as it weighed the negative impact internationally of
a conviction and killing of Lawal.
Dubem Onyia, former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, who made
the government’s position known, said: “The ruling is not
a travesty of justice as there are higher courts yet to examine the
case. The Nigerian government has never undermined the rights of its
citizens and will not look away when these rights are threatened. It
is worthy to mention that in the history of justice in Nigeria no woman
has ever been punished in such [a] dastardly manner as pre-empted by
this case and this will not be an exception.”
“The Nigerian constitution stands supreme in this case. In the
working of our constitution, when the state laws impinge on federal
laws, the federal laws usually supersede,” Onyia added.
Lawal is the second woman to be set free by a higher Sharia Court after
being condemned to death by stoning for adultery by a lower court.
Safiya Hussein, another woman condemned for having a baby out of wedlock
was set free later after appeal to a higher court and following international
pressure and outcry by rights groups and intervention by the presidency.
Nigeria narrowly escaped being turned into a pariah state for the second
time after the era of the infamous late General Sani Abacha (1993-1997)
if the Sharia Appeal Court did not overturn the ruling of death sentence
on Hussein and set her free.
Hussein is today a citizen of Rome, Italy, having been granted a right
of abode there.
Sharia was introduced in Zamfara State more as a political platform
by the campaigning Governor Yerima Sani in 1999 than for purely religious
purpose. Eleven other northern states have since joined the crusade,
leading to hundreds of people being subjected to cruel and humiliating
sentences such as limb amputations for stealing, and public floggings
for consuming alcohol.
Bush health cuts spur abortions, NGOs
report
By Miriam Kagan
Washington, DC, Sept. 24 (IPS)— President George
W. Bush’s cuts to funding for global reproductive health programs
have not only failed to reduce abortions but have devastated family
planning services in some of the world’s poorest countries, says
a report released Tuesday.
The report, entitled “Access Denied: US Restrictions on International
Family Planning,” by a consortium of population-planning non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), examines the effects of the “Mexico City
Policy” on reproductive health services in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia
and Romania.
The Global Gag Rule Impact Project, a collaborative effort of Population
Action International, IPAS, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
and several other NGOs, developed the report.
On Jan. 22, 2001, Bush reinstated restrictions on overseas health care
organizations in effect during the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations
known as the Mexico City Policy, or the “Gag Rule,” which
were not enforced under the Clinton administration.
These restrictions prohibit assistance for family planning from the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) to foreign NGOs that
use funding from any source to perform abortions, provide counseling
or referral about them, or to lobby for the practice.
Although originally the restrictions applied only to funds from USAID,
Bush recently extended the rules to State Department aid.
NGOs in countries across the globe depend on USAID for significant portions
of their program funding, as the United States is the world’s largest
aid donor.
According to Terri Bartlett, vice president for public policy and strategic
initiatives at Population Action International (PAI), “This policy
significantly reduces access to vital family planning services.”
While one of the aims of the Gag Rule is to prevent abortions, the report
found that not only does the policy fail to prevent abortions, it causes
women to seek them more frequently, the groups said at the report’s
release Tuesday.
The policy “does not prevent women from getting abortions; it only
prevents access to safe and reliable information and healthcare,”
leading to more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions, said Valerie
DeFillipo, director of Planned Parenthood’s Global Partners Project.
Bartlett added that the Gag Rule is “another example of ideology
trumping science. The Bush administration is ignoring evidence that
access to healthcare is vital to healthy development of women, children,
and community.”
The report says the Gag Rule has hindered healthcare activity in the
countries surveyed, where access to family planning and related health
services were reduced or in some cases eliminated.
In Kenya, where the maternal death rate is 1,300 per 100,000, two of
the leading family planning NGOs closed five of their clinics.
Three of the clinics were operated by the Family Planning Association
of Kenya (FPAK), which served almost 19,000 clients in 2000. One clinic
was located in a neighborhood with no government service, so its closure
has left residents with no access to healthcare, says the report.
In Zambia, where abortion is legal, the leading family planning organization,
PPAZ, lost 24 percent of its funding and was forced to cut crucial service
to rural areas because of its refusal to sign the Gag Rule.
In rural Ethiopia, where women have an average of six children and only
eight percent of women use contraception, rural clinics rendered ineligible
to receive USAID supplies have run out of Depo-Provera, a contraceptive
used by 70 percent of its clients.
And in Romania, where women often use abortion as their main contraceptive
method — the country averages 2.2 abortions per woman — the
Gag Rule has reinforced the separation between abortion and family planning
services, hindering efforts to counsel post-abortion patients.
According to Hilary Fyfe, chairperson of the pro-life Family Planning
Movement in Zambia, “unfortunately, the Gag Rule has had devastating
effects on planned parenthood in Zambia. Youths have nowhere to go.”
Fyfe pointed out that in Zambia, where one in five adults is infected
with AIDS, nearly 70 percent of the population is under the age of 24,
and most of these people need family planning counseling because they
will soon reach child-bearing age.
The report says the Gag Rule has also affected efforts to educate, prevent,
and treat HIV/AIDS patients in Africa.
For instance, the organization Marie Stopes International was forced
to close a reproductive health clinic in a province in Kenya that has
the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the country.
The groups say the policy puts many NGOs in an impossible position.
Signing the Gag Rule means they receive crucial funds but it curtails
free speech and outreach efforts. Refusing to sign means losing essential
funds while maintaining the ability to choose actions that suit individual
communities.
Many NGOs have refused to sign, citing free speech and arguing that
the Gag Rule is completely out of touch with the needs of local communities.
According to Bartlett, “clinics on the ground in developing countries
are comprehensive,” delivering a range of services, including mother
and childcare, reproductive services, and HIV/AIDS information.
Cutting off funding hurts all of those services, not just the family
planning aspects, she adds.
IPAS Executive Vice President Barbara Crane says the Bush administration
has a “blindness and unwillingness to hear the facts that are staring
us in the face.”
And according to the groups, the US public does not support the Gag
Rule.
DeFillipo told the audience that “nearly 70 percent of Americans
believe the US should be supportive of these programs — on par
with the support for the ‘war on terrorism’.”
Members of IPAS also told IPS that colleagues and friends at USAID,
although unwilling to say so on record, disapprove of the Gag Rule and
feel it is undoing years of hard work by USAID to establish important
aid distribution networks abroad.
According to Crane, the Gag Rule violates the central tenets of US foreign
assistance: distributing funds efficiently and promoting Democratic
values abroad.
It is “interfering with democratic processes. Who should be making
the choice, the White House or the women and governments affected?”
she asked.
“How ironic,” said Fyfe, “that an administration that
claims to be pro-life is killing women.”
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