Why, Dubai?

I was at the dentist’s when I heard the news.

- Did you know? They raped a woman and she came on Tv.
- What!!!??? Who? Another Abeer?
- This time it’s Iraqi force!
- !!!!!!!!!

My jaw was widely opened for a while even though it was not me who was sitting under my dentist’s drill, not because I think that Iraqis are so honorable and far from raping their own blood. On the contrary, Iraq is being raped every day by Iraqis before any invasion force but the shocking thing is that finally a woman , brave enough to come on tv and admit that.

As if it wasn’t enough all the destruction and dead faces and lousy check points in the name of the security plan I saw on my way to the dentist, no! There will always be new surprises.

I saw the news on Tv and beside the shock and utter disbelief and despite the controversy that this story will make and the lies that will be said to cover up what ever might expose anything about our life in Iraq under the new democracy and freedom, I have to show my full respect to this woman, Sabrine Al-Janabi, who risked her life to expose some of what is happening under the blanket.

I have so much to say but Riverbend has said all what I wanted to say by her two posts.


I honestly do not know what should I think when I see them knocking on our door to search the house. Should I worry about my savings, my jewelry ,my laptop, my mobile phone, or MYSELF.

Another shock came when I heard that Al-Maliki ordered to reward the animals who were involved.

What happened will be a great encouragement for those animals who have a license to get into our houses and have the authority to open our closets and touch our belongings. They know that not only they would get away with raping women but they would get rewarded for it.

Hanging the womb of Iraq

Stop the executions!

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

Last month, , Gulf News, 7Days and Khaleej Times agreed on posting the same piece of news in different titles : like UAE offers hope for injured Iraqi children , Police team visits 55 Iraqi kids in the hospital . However I could not find 7 days article after I sent them an email asking them to publish the bad and good not just the good.

I would not doubt the credibility of the news, however I believe that if you want to be honest you should show both sides. I noticed that UAE media is always keen on showing the bright face of UAE while dumping all the bad things away and making sure no one knows about them unless a scandal takes place. I do not know the real reasons for that but I reckon it is all for the foreign investors and big companies to make UAE looks like the flawless country that everyone in the

world is dreaming of.

One of the articles was saying:

In another you read:

First of all, Islamic values and Muslim unity do not exist and you do not need to wait for Iraqis to get injured and handicapped until you decide to take them to UAE and show the whole world how good muslims you are helping our children. The conditions that Iraqis are living are known for the whole world and it is just a disgrace for Arabs that it is being used as publicity materials.
I wish I can thank you for taking care of our children but the words are not coming out of my mouth for I know the purpose behind such news.

Iraqis are being rejected in UAE and let me remind you that those Iraqis who are being rejected were coming to UAE for the good job opportunities that UAE provides, to work hard and to earn their living. They are going to UAE escaping from a horrible situation that no country has gone through in the whole history.

I ask you now, why you do not publish about the closed doors in Iraqi faces. You can go to the Iraqi Business Council or you can go interview the Iraqis living in UAE and see how they got there and how they are forced to live and sometimes work on a visit visa for you do not want to give Iraqis residencies, or even better idea try to pay a visit to the labor ministry and see the piles of rejected visas of Iraqis, especially Iraqi college graduates.

Iraqi women are a NO-Way thing for UAE and my story is a living proof for that along with hundreds of other Iraqi women who are not even given a visit visa. I do not think that Iraqi women are more dangerous than those women of other nationality who are allowed to enter UAE without one single problem, to work in the nightclubs or in the escorting companies all over UAE. I know there are Iraqi gipsy dancers (Kawaliya) but guess what, those are sponsored directly and face no hassle since they are one of the many flavors that the UAE society needs.

Is the above Islamic?

The snap shot was taken and the news was heard by everyone so you have had what you wanted.

I was in contact with one of the above newspaper's reporters and after exchanging 12 emails and one phone call he was still not digesting the whole matter. He refused to read my blog for some reason and after 3 minutes on the phone he ended up the phone call after insisting for days to talk to me. I am sorry I did not give you the image that you were looking for to make UAE even more beautiful. Good luck with that, I am sure you will find plenty other things to talk about.

It seems that the matter of Iraqis not being allowed in UAE in general is being covered in a very good way that no one would believe what is really happening One of the matters that cover the issue that you can find many Iraqis who live in UAE but no one question how they got there first place to know the difficulties.

After few months, I found out that I was still clinging to hope. I still found myself running every morning to my emails to see if there was something, someone telling me that my problem was solved. I kept on trying sending emails right and left but no use.

I wrote an email to the person who was about to be my boss and told the obvious, that I wanted to call an end and I want an official contract termination.

That email was for me more than it was for him. I wanted a closure. I was getting drained with things in Baghdad were going from bad to worse everyday.

His reply was nice but did not help:

The dream and faith have already gone.

In Baghdad, my good Non-Arab, Non-Iraqi boss was following up with me and when he knew that my company in Dubai had nothing to do for me he tried to help through his contacts in UAE, after all, our company was struggling to keep working in Iraq and we were threatened to lose everything in any minute especially after our company was attacked.

One morning,a well well known Iraqi-British business man called me and asked me few questions and said he would apply a visit visa for me and when I went there he would try to set me residency with his company or another company if I wanted to.

He made it clear that it was because I was single that I was rejected.

The new visit visa application took months in processing. Every now and then I receive and email from my boss asking me to provide a certain document, once it was my college certificate to prove that I was a college graduate. They were probably worried I would be a belly dancer lasama7 Allah.
Another time they were asking for my old passport and my old visa to prove that I was in UAE before. For Iraqis being in UAE before should facilitate your second visa, even the tourism offices in Amman would not submit your visa application if you had not been there. Once again they were asking for my mother’s document to prove that she was with me.

After three months, my visa application was rejected and, again, for unannounced reasons.

During that time, a new girl was brought to the office. She worked for another company but in the same building with us. She was very loud and funny; you could always hear her voice while making fun of others or joking around. In spit I was in front of her the whole time she did not find me interesting to say hello, well, not until my colleague arrived from his business trip and I started to see a lot of her.

She liked my colleague and I started noticing the flirting when ever my colleague went to have coffee or using the copy machine. That did not bother me but actually added fun to the dull atmosphere we were working in and gave me some laughs every now and then. I stopped laughing when she started trying to make friends with me to come and sit in our office and see more of my colleague. She would come sit with me like 15 minutes every day, talk about everything and anything. She did not need my contribution to the one sided conversation beside the occasional nodding or the “Yah”, “Of course” and “Ok” from my side.
She used to work with the American Army but found it too risky to continue with them so she switched to another company. She told me some shocking stories that you cannot just share with strangers. She told me about how once she entered a room on two, American solider and some Iraqi prostitute!! I had many question marks on her but I knew that story was told me to as a threat too. She knows a lot and she is well connected. Got the message.

She once stepped into our office and started telling me that she is not comfortable with everything and wanted to leave to Dubai and since everyone in the company knew I was in Dubai she asked if I could join her and leave together.
I gave her a diplomatic answer and she left after telling me she would do it whether I would go or not.
My colleague looked at me in fear after she was out of our office and said” You’d be crazy if you considered going with her”.. “I am not planning to” I answered.

That girl holds Non Iraqi passport and despite she worked with the invasion force, the UAE authorities granted her a residency. I knew that when she returned back to Iraq, just like me, resigned and took all her stuff and returned to the country who calls Iraqis “ Our Muslim Brothers and Sisters”