Hanging the womb of Iraq

Wassan Talib, 31 years old, Zainab Fadhil, 25 years old, and Liqa Omar Muhammad, 26 years old, face imminent execution in Iraq, all charged with “offences against the public welfare” by a government that cannot even provide electricity but fills the streets with dead bodies. All are in Baghdad’s Al-Kadhimiya Prison. Two have small children beside them. The 1-year-old daughter of Liqa was born in prison. All women deny the charges for which they face hanging.

Paragraph 156 of the Iraqi Penal Code, under which they were judged, reads: “Any person who wilfully commits an act with intent to violate the independence of the country or its unity or the security of its territory and that act by its nature, leads to such violation is punishable by death.” Iraq’s “puppet” government charges these women with its own crimes.

None of the three women was permitted to see a lawyer. The trials to which they were subject are illegal under international law. All three are prisoners of war with protected rights under the Third Geneva Convention. Their execution would not only be illegal and summary, it would be utterly immoral. Civilization around the world reviles the death penalty while Iraq’s feudal leaders make a public spectacle of executions.
In a country where it is evident there is no state or judicial system, the occupation and its puppet government use, as all repressive regimes in history, fake tribunals to exterminate those who oppose them. No legal judgement can be issued while there isn’t the civilised conditions of due process, at least the presence and security of lawyers.
Iraqi women are testament to the life of the nation of Iraq. By contrast, the US-installed government, in its backwardness, imposes only a culture of death. Whereas Iraq was the most progressive state in the region for women’s rights, with the US invasion protective legislation was cancelled. The United States and its local conspirators, in creating hundreds of thousands of widows and reducing life in Iraq to a struggle for bare survival, have placed women in the crosshairs and now on the gallows.

Women are always the first and last victims of war. We celebrate the numberless acts of resistance of Iraqi women, whether their resilience in the face of a culture of rape, torture and murder by US and Iraqi forces, their fortitude in continuing to give life amid state-sponsored genocide, their dignity as they try to maintain a semblance of normality for their children and families, their courage in burying their husbands, sons, daughters or brothers, or in direct action against an illegal and failed military occupation.

We demand the release of Wassan, Zainab and Liqa and all political prisoners in Iraq. We call upon all persons, organisations, parliaments, workers, syndicates and states to withdraw recognition from this pro-occupation, sectarian Iraqi government. We call for immediate protest in front of every Iraqi embassy worldwide. There is no honour in murdering women. Occupation is the highest form of dictatorship. It is not these three women who should be prosecuted; it is this government and its foreign paymaster.

Hana Albayaty
Ian Douglas
Abdul Ilah Albayaty
Iman Saadoon
Dirk Adriaensens
Ayse Berktay
First endorsers:

Dr Lieven De Cauter
Dr Curtis Doebbler
Aida Seif El Dawla
Paola Manduca
Mondher Adhami
Sigyn Meder
Socorro Gomes
José Reinaldo Carvalho
Salah Omar Al Ali
Basem Khader
John Catalinotto
Sara Flounders
Hans Von Sponeck
Saadallah Fadhi
Dr Samia Mehrez
Fadhil Bedran
Paola Pisi
Nada Kassass
Ceylan Özerengin
Jan-Erik Lundström
Meissoon Azzaria
Matthias Chang
Mark Richey
Dr Suhair Abbas
Dr Gurdial Singh Nijar
Shokook MirzadegiMarie-Noëlle Lombard
Roland Lombard
Frigga Karl
Lim Ai Yim
Niloufer Bhagwat
Iraq Solidarity Association in Stockholm
Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade aos Povos e Luta pela Paz Cebrapaz (Brazilian Center for Solidarity with the Peoples Struggle for Peace)
BRussells Tribunal Committee
International Action Center
International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
Statement by Abdul Ilah Albayaty
(11 February 2007)


Wassan Talib, 31 years old, Zainab Fadhil, 25 years old, and Liqa Omar Mohammed, 26 years old, accused of belonging to and participating in the Iraqi resistance, summarily judged in a simulacra of a trial, in the absence of lawyers, will be executed 3 March 2007 in Baghdad.

Lawyers, persuaded that your very presence is the guarantee of justice
Syndicates and workers who celebrate the international feast of 1 May in memory of the American workers judged on false accusations
Religious of all religions who carry in you the suffering of Christ, crucified after a false trial
Marxists revolted by the false trials fabricated by powers like the one of Rosa Luxembourg
Militants conscious that this could happen to you whatever is your cause
Defenders of human rights, in particular the right to fair trial
Women who give life and of whom the flesh shakes in front of the atrocity of such executions
Arabs, proud and in solidarity with the sacrifices of the Iraqi people against the barbarity of the occupation and its puppet government
Civilised beings, human beings who refuse the so-called “legal” murders perpetrated by states

ALL, let’s unite ourselves, raise our voices to scream our indignation, refuse the horrors and the regression of our civilisation, and prevent the assassinations of Wassan, Zainab and Liqa.


Abdul Ilah Albayaty







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