Help End Honor Killing Iraq: A Letter from Yanar Mohammad

Dear Friends in V-Day,

We have launched our international campaign against honor killings in Iraq, and specifically about the current killing of Doa in the Kurdish part of Iraq. Although these crimes are committed all over the country and in dozens of killings every week, this particular one was committed in a public space and documented/video taped by the male-chauvinist viewers and observed cold-bloodedly by police staff.

Houzan Mahmoud, one of the strong leaders of OWFI, is the campaign coordinator. She is collaborating with Amnesty International in order to gain their voices for the campaign.

We are gathering signatures on our petition for the current time, in order to present them to the Kurdish regional authorities, whose top official is the president of our "democratic" Iraq. Houzan will be presenting them to the Kurdish authorities while I will be meeting the central Iraqi officials in the prime minister's office, the Ministry of interior, and Ministry of justice to remove the article, which protects honor killing from the penal code (strangely enough, the authorities did not agree to remove it so far after four years of "liberation").

Please circulate this petition among your members and make us stronger in our local campaign. A women's solidarity is most needed at this point in Iraq. Our lives do not need this extra danger, which is rising tremendously in the chaotic times under occupation.

Visit our campaign at: http://www.petitiononline.com/kurdish/petition.html

In Solidarity,

Yanar Mohammed

Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, president OWFI

www.equalityiniraq.com