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THE
students had begun to lay out their picnic in the
spring sunshine when the men attacked.
“There were dozens of them, armed with guns, and
they poured into the park,” Ali al-Azawi, 21, the
engineering student who had organised the gathering
in Basra, said.
“They started shouting at us that we were immoral,
that we were meeting boys and girls together and
playing music and that this was against Islam.
“They began shooting in the air and people screamed.
Then, with one order, they began beating us with
their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were
said to have been killed.
Standing over them as the blows rained down was the
man who gave the order, dressed in dark clerical
garb and wearing a black turban. Ali recognised him
immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada
al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric. Ali realised then
that the armed men were members of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s
Mehdi Army, a private militia that fought American
forces last year and is now enforcing its own
firebrand version of Islam.
The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that
increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern
city, where religious militias rule the streets,
forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops
that sell alcohol or music.
In the election in January, the battle between
secular and religious forces in Basra came down to
the ballot box. The main Shia alliance triumphed
with 70 per cent of the province’s vote, most of the
rest going to a secular rival.
That victory has brought to a head the issue of
whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic
law or Sharia as most religious Shia leaders desire.
In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are
beginning to apply their own version of that law,
without authority from above or any challenge from
the police.
Students say that there was nothing spontaneous
about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in
the park, as is customary at any large public
gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any
resistance.
One brought a video camera to record the sinful
spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later
released to the public as a warning to others.
It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman
ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. “We
will send these pictures to your parents so they can
see how you were dancing naked with men,” a gunman
told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot
one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The
latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow
students say that the girl later committed suicide.
Another girl who was severely beaten around the head
lost her sight.
Far from disavowing the attack, senior al-Sadr
loyalists said that they had a duty to stop the
students’ “dancing, sexy dress and corruption”.
“We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to
do so and that is our duty,” Sheik Ahmed al-Basri
said after the attack. “It is we who should deal
with such disobedience and not the police.”
After escaping with two students, Ali reached a
police station and asked for help. “What do you
expect me to do about it?” a uniformed officer
asked.
Ali went to the British military base at al-Maakal
and pleaded with the duty officer at the gate.
“You’re a sovereign country now. We can’t help. You
have to go to the Iraqi authorities,” the soldier
replied.
When the students tried to organise demonstrations,
they were broken up by the Mehdi Army. Later the
university was surrounded by militiamen, who
distributed leaflets threatening to mortar the
campus if they did not call off the protests.
When the militia began to set up checkpoints and
arrest students, Ali fled to Baghdad.
A British spokesman said that troops were unable to
intervene unless asked to by the Iraqi authorities.
Colonel Kareem al-Zeidy, Basra’s police chief,
pleaded helplessness. “What can I do? There is no
government, no one to give us authority,” he said.
“The political parties are the most powerful force
in Basra right now.”
The students have begun an indefinite strike, but
fear that there is little that they can do to stop
the march of violent fundamentalism. Saleh, 21,
another engineering student, said: “If this is how
they deal with the most educated in Basra, how would
they deal with ordinary people? The soul of our city
is at stake.”
The Times
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