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تاريخ التسجيل : 07/10/2009
 | موضوع: Revolution Iraq  الأربعاء 16 فبراير 2011 - 22:15 | |
| Revolution Iraq  Our fellow compatriots in our bleeding Iraq, your brothers have gathered in this place and have resolved to change the corrupt reality that has got to a point of being quite intolerable; for murder, forced displacement, detention, plunder of public monies, and hunger and starvation have become permanent fixtures of our lives.
Our salvation and that of our children and of future generations will not be achieved unless the American Occupation and the present political system that is based on sectarian and ethnic quotas that was created by the Occupation and adopted by the Green Zone politicians. They have proved on each successive day, that they have not come to serve Iraq as they had misled the nation, but that they had come to serve the their own personal interests.
BISSMILLAH AL RAHMAN AL RAHEEM
"God does not change people, unless they change themselves."
Our heroic Iraqi compatriots, we will sleep on the soil of Iraq, here in the throbbing heart of Baghdad, and keep Vigil peacefully, day and night until all our demands are implemented, some of which, at the present time are:
1- Fighting corruption and the presentation of those plunderers of public monies to the courts of justice.
2- Provision of the complete list all the basic consumer items coupons and immediate improvement of services.
3- The release of all detainees who have not had any crimes proven against them and the immediate disclosure of secret prisons.
4- Provision of job opportunities for young people.
5- The enactment of an immediate law for the care of millions of orphans and widows and the increase in pensions.
These are our preliminary demands, which, should they not be met, then would be approached differently by those holding the Vigil.
We appeal to our pure Iraqi Youth to join the march for national demands that is based on pure independent patriotic grounds and the confirmation of the building of Iraq and of the preservation of Iraq’s unity and of the dignity of the Iraqi People, without any sectarian or partisan affiliations and associations.
Our primary goal is to change the dire situation faced by Iraq, We urge our fellow youth to join the Iraqi Liberation March, by joining us, or by organizing sit-ins in their present areas.
God and Iraq are our intent.
Popular Movement to Save Iraq.
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 1 comments   Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-9095148209176758048")); } Torture and Secret Prisons Continue  As the world's eyes were fixed on the drama in Egypt last week, Human Rights Watch investigators in Iraq filed a depressingly familiar chapter in the country's recent history, making new allegations of torture and of a secret prison that they say is run by special counterterrorism forces who answer directly to the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The watchdog group reported that, in November, more than 280 prisoners were transferred from their prison in the Green Zone to the secret prison, known as Camp Justice, just days before a team of rights observers were planning to visit and monitor conditions.
Two separate security forces, the 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service, both of which take orders from Maliki, are tasked with running the secret prison -- and have proven adept at keeping its detainees beyond the reach of international aid groups, relatives, or the state's own Ministry of Human Rights.
When I called Samer Muscati, a Human Rights Watch investigator, in Baghdad on the final day of his fact-finding trip, he was exhausted. Muscati, who is Canadian-born of Iraqi parents, denounced the continued existence of "black site" detention centers where he said torture and sexual brutalization are regular practice and called Camp Justice "a new franchise" for Maliki's elite forces. "We're seeing a pattern of abuse. It shows these forces are working in unison to control different prisons."
All the men held at Camp Justice are there on terrorism charges, Muscati told me. "We got a list of what every prisoner was accused of. There's maybe one murderer." And while they are predominately Sunni, he cautioned against interpreting their imprisonment as a sectarian political act.
"They're not being rounded up because they're Sunni. They're being rounded up because they're in areas where terrorists operate." The real problem, he said, is that Maliki's rogue forces are acting outside either the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Defense. "They're hunting down what they think are terrorists.
And if you look at what the Prime Minister said to the Associated Press, calling out report lies, he mentioned that everyone there is either a terrorist or Baathist. There's this sense that it's okay, because these guys aren't even worthy of their rights to begin with." He continued, "They're not approaching it in a way that's going to end the impunity. They're approaching it in a way of damage control."
Many Iraqis know this story all too well, and Camp Justice is just the latest scandal marring the country's nascent criminal justice system. Human Rights Watch and the Los Angeles Times first discovered the existence of Iraq's parallel secret prison system last April, when they published lurid accounts of the cruel sexual violence that came at the hands of the Prime Minister's special forces.
In response, Maliki distanced himself from the prisons, saying they would be immediately shuttered, their detainees transferred to Ministry of Justice-run sites, and their operators prosecuted. Last week, Minister of Justice Busho Ibrahim followed suit, stating that no prisons in the country that fell outside the authority of his ministry. "Why would Maliki have special prisons?" he said. "Isn't he the leader of Iraq?"
But detainees from Camp Honor, the Green Zone prison from which the 280 Camp Justice detainees were transferred, said in interviews this winter with Human Rights Watch that the brutalities had gone unchecked. "My hands were tied over my head and my feet were put in water, then they shocked me in my head and my neck and my chest," one former prisoner told investigators.
"The interrogators beat me repeatedly and told me that they would go to my house and rape my sister if I did not sign a confession, so I did. I did not even know what I was confessing to." Others said that their captors hung them upside-down for hours or suffocated them with plastic bags.
"Torture is not a new phenomenon," Muscati pointed out. "It was pervasive under Saddam, and then we had the Americans at Abu Ghraib, then the British in Basra. Unfortunately, this seems to be a baton that's handed from one power to the next."
Muscati has spent time in too many Iraqi prisons, secret or not, to remain an idealist; he understands the sheer geopolitical inertia that Human Rights Watch is battling in Iraq. "In fairness to the government," he said, "They do have an enormous problem with Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia, which didn't exist before 2003.
A month doesn't go by in which you don't have mass casualties because of a spectacular attack. This is a place where violence is festering. The concern is, how do you deal with it in a way that doesn't create new terrorists, alienate a large part of the population, or trample on people's human rights?"
So while Egyptian lawyers, students, and grandmothers took over the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, unwilling to accept President Mubarak's concessions and unwilling to concede to his security thugs, Iraqis struggled to make sense of yet another torture scandal. And they began protesting, too -- demanding better government services, more jobs, and an end to Iraq's notorious corruption, in which torture and secret prisons now play a significant role.
The first few days of February saw scattered protests across Iraq, including a demonstration of about 700 in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. The demonstrations never coalesced into a national movement as they did in Egypt and Tunisia, but they didn't need to. On February 5, Maliki, in an interview with reporters, announced that he would not seek a third term as Prime Minister.
The Atlantic Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-3471982964570522847")); } Iraq protesters demand jobs  Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Iraqi cities on Tuesday, inspired by popular protests around the Arab world, to demand job-creation programmes and better electricity supplies.
The biggest turnout was in Fallujah where about 800 protesters marched through the city of western Iraq that a bastion of the insurgency after the US-led invasion of 2003.
Groups of around 200 demonstrated in the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq and the poor Shiite district of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad.
"We are calling today for better basic services and more jobs," said Sattar Omar, a jobless 27-year-old in Fallujah. "We have been suffering for a very long time, and it is time for us to demand our rights."In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen demonstrators turned out in traditional costumes to also call for better basic services, lower fuel prices and more jobs.
"There is no life without electricity," "Give us food," and "Stop corruption," their banners read."We demand that our civil freedoms are guaranteed, that corrupt officials are punished, and that we get better basic services and cheaper fuel," said Shaker Hassan, a demonstrator at the protest organised by secular groups.
Men, women and Shiite clerics turned out in Sadr City. "We do not beg, we demand our rights," "No to corruption, Yes to basic services," read their banners.Protests over irregular deliveries of food rations for the poor and lack of basic services have sparked increased protests around Iraq since uprisings which have toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt over the past month.
A jobless 30-year-old man in northern Iraq set himself on fire and died on Sunday, the latest in a rash of copycat suicides across the Arab world since a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire last December.Facebook groups which have organised smaller protests, including a Valentine's Day demonstration in Baghdad, are calling for a large turnout at a February 25 rally in the Iraqi capital.
Unlike the pro-democracy protests elsewhere in the Arab world, Iraqi demonstrators demand improvements to living standards eight years after the invasion which overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein.Angry Iraqis staged violent demonstrations last summer in several southern cities over power rationing as temperatures reached 54 degrees Celsius (130 Fahrenheit).
Homes and businesses across Iraq suffer daily power cuts and rely on private generators to fill the gap, as the war-ravaged country struggles to boost capacity.On Monday, the government announced that it was postponing a planned purchase of 18 F-16 fighter planes from the United States and diverting the funds to feed the poor.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after the Valentine's Day demonstration on Monday that he was not opposed to protests."Protesting is a right guaranteed by the constitution, and I ordered the security forces to protect" the demonstrators, the premier said in a meeting with local officials.
AFP Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-8881149844172113167")); } Egypt's Shockwaves Hit Iraq  Two-months after Iraq formed a government following a record breaking period of coalition-building, demonstrators took to the streets in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces.In northern Baghdad protestors complained about the government's inability to mend the roads, provide electricity, as well as overcrowded schools and hospitals. In Diwaniyah some 700 stone throwing protestors were dispersed by shots fired in the air, and in Najaf police broke up what the authorities called an 'illegal demonstration'.
Prime Minister Maliki's reaction to the shockwaves emanating from events in Cairo was stunning. For a leader whose personal ambitions were a huge part of logjam around forming a government, the decision to rule himself out of running for further office in addition to cutting his $350,000 salary in half was a bolt from the blue. Maliki is also seeking to make a constitutional change to ensure a two-term limit to the office of the Prime Minister.
There can be little doubt that Maliki's authoritarian-lite mode of rule is threatened by the unleashing of people power in Cairo. Following the various disturbances the Iraqi government announced that they would be cancelling the planned purchase of 18 US made F-16 fighter planes in favour of allocating the money to improving food rationing for the poor.
Maliki would no doubt have seen amongst the enduring images from Egypt the contrast between the frustrated poverty of much of Cairo's population and the multimillion dollar M1 Abraham tanks that stood impotently by on the margins of Liberation square.
While I endorse the view that politics in the 'new Iraq' are a hybrid of Lebanon's sectarian system accelerated by its massive overreliance on oil, what's interesting is whether or not the model that Iraq's Western midwives had in mind was far more like the one under so much pressure in Egypt.
Indeed, although both Iraq's electoral process and coalition politics are far more open that those of Egypt, the strategy of building a massive security apparatus whose primary role is internal security has strong parallels with the tottering government in Cairo. In addition the government in Baghdad's attempt to concentrate power, which has not corresponded to more effective service delivery, has been a steady process since 2003.
The country still hosts regular large scale and deadly bomb attacks (27 people were blown up last Saturday). Iraq expert Reidar Visser recently commented on the top heavy nature of government, writing that "there are signs that Iraqis are already calling for "better services" but until they also start calling for "fewer vice-presidents" their revolution is likely to remain a frustrated one".
Concern over Maliki's steady hording of state power was raised again prior to events in Egypt, when according to McClatchy news; in response to a request by the prime minister, Iraq's Federal Supreme Court ruled last month that several important government bodies - - including the central bank, the electoral commission and the top anti-corruption council -- fall under the authority of the Cabinet, which Maliki heads.
Considering the West's stable and enduring relationship with Mubarak's Egypt, building a similar state in Iraq was an obvious strategy . Despite talking the good talk when it comes to human rights abuses in Syria and Iran, when it comes to US/UK traditional allies there is an obvious preference for security over the uncertainties associated with democratic freedoms. Hence both the West's toleration and active support of Mubarak that lasted for some thirty years.
It is therefore somewhat surprising to see Western leaders rushing to capture the populist mode surrounding the events by clamping down on Mubarak's western investments, while they stood idle when he committed the original looting. Nobody better embodied the Janus nature of the West's response to Egypt than Quartet representative Tony Blair who said last week that Mubarak was "immensely courageous and a force for good" before changing his tune following his departure in describing the event as a "pivotal moment for democracy in the Middle East".
Meanwhile commenting on events in Egypt British Foreign Minister William Hague explained that "over the last few weeks we have witnessed events of a truly historic nature in the region, including changes of government in Tunisia and Egypt and widespread calls for greater economic development and political participation.
I visited Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates last week to discuss the situation with our partners in the region." Interestingly considering the amount of blood and treasure that Britain has invested in it, Iraq was not on the itinerary for what I would describe as a tour that was more a search for relevance rather than any substantive push of a distinctive British position.
Perhaps after spending the last eight years arguing for improved mechanisms of security in Iraq the Foreign Secretary finds it hard to comment on Iraq's current democracy and government efficiency deficit? Indeed, talk of democracy is seldom heard by Western powers that are looking to close the bloody chapter of history that was the attempt to bring democracy to Iraq.
Nevertheless events in Egypt were, if nothing else, a testimony to Western irrelevance. They are also a reminder of how different things could have been in 2003 if instead of attacking Saddam's state infrastructure regime change had been sought by supporting Iraq's people.
James Denselow, the Huffington Post Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-4739118940630891049")); } Mass protests at government corruption  Thousands of working people rallied in central Baghdad today to protest against rampant government corruption and the shabby state of public services in their occupied country.
The protesters massed in the capital's al-Tahrir Square in Bab al-Sharji and chanted slogans demanding that the Iranian-backed government take action to get people into work, raise wages and rein in soaring food prices.
Many raised banners bearing the image of a broken heart, a reference to Valentine's Day, while others held up placards demanding that corrupt officials be held to account.
"Government, you should take lessons from Egypt and Tunisia," demonstrators warned, insisting that Iraq's "oil wealth should go to the people but goes to thieves instead."
Despite sitting on some of the world's largest oil reserves, most Iraqis endure electricity shortages that make summer almost unbearably hot and leave them shivering in winter.There are also water shortages and refuse is routinely left on the streets.
"The high salaries for the parliamentarians and top officials are not acceptable while most of us are living on two dollars a day," one young protester stormed.On Sunday police reported that a man had died after setting himself ablaze in Mosul to protest against unemployment.
The 31-year-old married father of four apparently committed suicide because he had not been able to find a job, they said.Tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens are expected to participate in a mass "Revolution of Iraqi Rage" demonstration scheduled for February 25 near the Green Zone.
By the Morning Star. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-1071598512872133133")); } Iraqis target leaders  Brandishing roses and balloons and dressed in Valentine red, hundreds of young Iraqis denounced the "greed" of their leaders in a protest on Monday inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
"Don't build palaces -- fix the sewers," proclaimed a banner carried by protesters at Baghdad's Tahrir Square, the same name of the Cairo epicentre of the protest that toppled Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak last week.
Another banner denounced the $11,000 monthly salary -- before benefits -- that Iraqi MPs approved for themselves.Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called the protesters' demands "real," and urged officials to address them.
Groups called "No Silence," "Baghdad Is Not Kandahar" and "Blue Revolution" organised the event, and used Facebook to organise the demonstration which took place in a light-hearted atmosphere to preserve its Valentine spirit.
"We gathered for the sake of Iraq, Iraq of love and peace," said Manar Izz al-Deen, one of the organisers."We chose this day because it is Valentine's Day. We decided to share our love for Iraq," she added.
"We want to live this love, but our love is filled with sorrow because we lack many things," said Izz al-Deen, a political science student at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University, who carried a red rose."We will continue demonstrations and organise more protests if the government does not fulfil our just demands," she added.
Protests over irregular deliveries of food rations for the poor and lack of basic services such as electricity have sparked protests around Iraq that have multiplied since uprisings toppled entrenched dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt.Journalist Balqees Kawoosh, another of the protest organisers, said Valentine's Day was not only for lovers, and that protesters wanted to show their love for Baghdad.
"Stop the theft, the negligence, stop sleeping -- the officials have slept enough," said Kawoosh, lashing out at leaders she said were complacent and uncaring about the people's plight."I don't think we will be more patient. We don't want to change the leader, we only want amendments, reforms. We want them to fulfil their promises," she said, dressed in red.
Ziyad al-Ajeeli, director of the Journalism Freedom Observatory, said the demonstration was a clear message that officials must repair basic services and improve security."All aspects of life in Iraq are bad," he said, adding that some officials in provincial councils were suppressing freedoms and encouraging Islamic extremism.
"The youth today are becoming more aware of themselves and can govern themselves and raise slogans rejecting these trends," said Ajeeli, who joined the protest.Karnas Ali, the organiser of "No Silence," said the protesters' demands were that Maliki punish corrupt officials."Our goal is not to change the government. We only want reforms," he said.
The watchdog Transparency International rates Iraq as the world's fourth-most corrupt country, with diplomats and local officials often citing widespread graft as a major obstacle to post-war reconstruction and development.
Maliki said he was not opposed to protests."Protesting is a right guaranteed by the constitution, and I ordered the security forces to protect them (the demonstrators)," the premier said in a meeting with local officials.
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