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Those
who put on makeup or choose not to wear the veil
fall victim to militants.
The phone calls that Miriem Ishaq, a Christian
lawyer in this northern Iraqi city, received
recently were chilling: wear the veil or face death,
she was told.
Ishaq knew the threats were serious. A woman she
knew personally had been killed during the last
Muslim holy month of Ramadan for failing to wear a
veil.
Then to underline the intimidation, several men
attacked Ishaq on her way to work, poured acid on
her clothes and spat on her face because she was
unveiled.
“These attacks have forced hundreds of Christians to
wear Islamic veils now,” said Ishaq.
Many women in Mosul, north of Baghdad, say insurgent
groups are trying to impose Taleban-style
restrictions on them and make the city a more
conservative place.
Women professors at the University of Mosul have
been targeted. Three of the ten professors killed by
insurgents were women.
One of the victims was Dr Eeman Abdul-Mun’im, head
of the translation department. A colleague believes
Abdul-Mun’im was targeted because insurgents wanted
to send a message to translators to stop working for
American security forces. Absdul-Mun’im had no ties
to the American military.
“She received many threats but she refused to
resign,” said the colleague.
Another female university professor said the
killings had forced women employees to take extra
safety precautions.
One professor said she used to carry a small knife
to work every day but the killings made this seem
inadequate and now her brother escorts her to the
university.
“If he can’t come with me, then I can’t go to work,”
she said. “My family worries about me all the time
that I’m at the university.”
One woman civil servant, who works at the
university, said she hired a private taxi driver to
take her to work.
“Even when I go to the market, I go with a driver,”
she said. “I’m worried all the time I am at work and
I read the Quran until I get home.”
The intimidation and the attacks have forced other
women in Mosul to give up going to work. And outside
the home many no longer wear makeup for fear of
being attacked by militants.
One woman, who used to own a beauty salon, wept as
she spoke about having to close it down after being
threatened.
“"It was a good source of income, and I liked my job
in the hairdressing shop,” said Sara, who declined
to give her real name. “But a new Taleban movement
has turned Iraq into another Afghanistan."
A civil servant said she used to buy the latest
makeup available on the market but now goes to work
with nothing on her face.
“I used to keep up with the latest makeup fashions,”
she said. “But now that the security situation has
got worse, we are restricted and deprived of our
rights and freedom.”
Brigadier General Sa’eed al-Juboori, media manager
of the Mosul police directorate, said the
authorities were trying to improve security so that
women were not deprived of their rights.
“We don’t agree with them being forced to wear veils
or stay at home,” he said. “It is necessary to
spread democracy.”
The fear has spread to special occasions.
One female university student said she wore simple
clothes at her wedding and did not have a party for
fear she would be killed.
She decided to opt for a low-key affair after
reading posters put up in the city saying that
brides wearing wedding dresses and having wedding
parties would be targeted.
Bassam Anees, who owned a hall used for wedding
parties, said he had to close his business after
receiving threats from insurgents. “Now I have no
job,” he said.
Sahar al-Haideri and Wa'ad Ibraheem are IWPR
trainees in Mosul.
www.iwpr.net
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