Stories+of+Flight+and+Persecution

Khalil and Dalal moved to Damascus in December 2004, fleeing religious and professional persecution in Baghdad. Khalil, a Chaldea Christian, is a painter, and taught classes in Iraq in addition to opening a gallery for his prize-winning art. In 2004, Khalil began to receive threats from an unknown man who objected to his painting of a women, calling it blasphemous. Khalil was also threatened because he had been asked to pain portaits of the American troops in Baghdad. He was beaten near his home because of his art, and three weeks after receiving the first threat, his gallery of burned to the ground. Shortly thereafter, Khalil and Dalal's house was also attacked when a firebomb was thrown into their living room at 2 am, as they slept in their bedroom upstairs. It took them two months to organize their papers and sell enough possessions to raise the money to leave. They cannot imagine returning to Iraq, especially as the Christiam community has been decimated by flight and violence. Khalil and Dalal have taken on the informal role of community activists in Damascus. Khalil teaches classes at the local church, and Dalal helps orient new arrivals from iraq to life in Syria. Dalal is featured in this picture with a photo of a nephew who was killed in Iraq. Khalil was afraid to be photographed for fear that his attackers would know he is now in Syria.
 * "As a Christian painter, my life was at risk in Iraq"**

Yasir, Afya, and Malik moved to Amman, Jordan in July 2006, feeling professoinal persecution. Yasir worked in Baghdad as a security officer for international NGOs working in Iraq. As organizations began to shut down their operations in Iraq because of security concerns, Yasir found it increasingly difficult to find work. In January 2006, he was let go from his third international NGO, and could not find work for a number of months. On July 27, Yasir was outside his house with his son Malik washing his car. An unknown car came speeding down the street, and shot ten rounds at Yasir. Though he was able to keep Malik from harm, he took three bullets to the body, none of them fatal. he is confident that he was targeted for working with international organizations seen as being part of the occupation of Iraq. Yasir learned through neighbors that his attackers knew he survived the attempt on his life, and four datys after the shooting, Yasir moved his family to Jordan. He immediately approached his former NGO employers and asked for help finding work, or in being resettled to a country where he could work. None were able to offer him any assistance. In Octover, Yasir sent Afya and Malik back to Iraq because he could not affort to support them any longer in Amman. He is planning on staying in Amman until the end of the year, and if he cannot find work, he will return to Iraq, despite Afya's objections. Yasir knows he will likely become a target again in Iraq, but feels it is the only way to continue providing for his family. Yasir is also considering purchasing fake travel paperse to get himself to Europe, where he could work and raise enough money to bring Afya and Malik to join him, but is hesitant to go without them.
 * "I was shot three times because I worked for western NGOs"**

Fatima moved to Damascus in 2003, fleeing professional and gender persecution. A secular Shi'a, she lived in Baghdad with an aunt and uncle, working as a hairdresser. The salon where Fatima worked began to receive threats from armed groups because they were cutting women's hair in a public place. Shortly thereafter, the salon was attacked, and Fatima quit her job out of fear for her safety. Her uncle similarly began to lecture her on the inappropriate nature of her work, so she moved out of their home to a building in Baghdad where single women lived. Unfortunately, militias soon began to threaten the building, believing that women should not live alone. At this time, women began to be kidnapped and killed around Baghdad, further raising Fatima's fears. She decided to sell her jewelry to raise money, and together with three other single women, she left for Syria. In her three years in Damascus, Fatima has found herself isolated in a society which is skeptical of single women. She has been able to scrape by cutting hair for neighbors, but has been unable to find steady work. She feels that she could settle permanently in Syria, but is desperate to work in order to support herself. As Syria does not give work permits to Iraqi refugees, she is considering moving anywhere that will take her.
 * "I was threatened and my workplace was destroyed because I am a hairdresser"**

Suleiman, Fatima, and their family fled Baghdad in May 2006 after being targeted because they are Palestinian. Seen as supporters of Saddam Huseein, numerous militias have issued calls for their supported or kill any and all Palestinians found in Iraq. In April 2006, a note was posted on the family's door warning them to leave the country. A few nights later, a bomb went off in their living room as the family slept upstairs. Fatima feel ill as a result of the attack, and the family was forced to contimue sleeping in their destroyed home until Fatima came home from the hospital. During this time, another note was left on their doorstep, threatening worse violence if they did not leave the country immediately. On May 10, the family hastily left the country, headed towards Syria. when they arrived at the border, they were told that they would not be allowed entry into the country because they are palestinian, and have since spent the past six months living in an impromptu refugee camp set up for Palestinians in a No Man's Land between the borders of the two countries. Along with 372 other Palestinians, they live in a tent with few belongings, and have limited access to fresh food, water, and basic sanitation. ¹
 * "Being Palestinian is a death sentence in today's Iraq"**

"I used to work with the Americans near Kut," said Sa'ad Hussein, a 34-year-old electical engineer. "I worked for Kellogg, Brown, and Root in constructionof an Iraqi base there until I returned to Baghdad and found a death threat written on a paper which was slipped under my door. I had to flee." Hussein described Baghdad as a "city of ghosts" where black banners of death announcements could be seen hanging on most streets. The city lives on an hour of electricity a day, and there are no jobs to be had. "I was an ex-captain in the Iraqi Army, and I think that's why I was threatened," he said. When asked how many of his former army colleagues had also received death threats, he replied, "All of them." He said it was not safe for him to go back to the Iraqi Army because it was likely he would be killed. "Most of the deaths are due to the Iraqi politicians and their militia," he added. Security, electicity and portable water supply, healthcare and unemployment are all much worse than during the reing of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, refugees say. "The Americans are detaining so many people," says Ali Hassan, a 41-year-old man. "My brother was killed by Shia mililitamen after he refused to give them the keys to empty Sunni houses we were looking after." Hassan, a Shia who fled Baghdad, said, "Now I can't go back. I am a refugee here, and I still don't feel secure because I still fear the Mehdi Army." "So many Iraqis never leave their homes now because they are too afraid to go out due to the militias," says Abdul Abdulla, a 68-year-old man who fled Baghdad. He said Shia militia members waited on the outskirts of his neighborhood to detain anyone trying to leave. "We stay in our houses," he added. "These eeath squads arrived after Negroponte arrived. And the Iraqi Government is definitely involved because they depend on the militia." "I was injured because I was near a car bomb which killed my daughter," said Eman Abdul Rahid, a 46-year-old mother. "There is killing, and the threat of killing, and explosions daily in Baghdad." Rahid said the Bush administration was responsible for creating the situation. "America is the reason why Iraq was invaded, so we would like the American administration to give aid to us refugees," she added. "I would like people to read this and tell Bush to help us." "Things are getting so much worse in Iraq," says refugee Salim Hamad. "There is a big difference between those who left four years ago and those who left four days ago. Everything in Iraq is based on sectarianism now and there is no protection - neither from the Americans nor the Iraqi government."²
 * "Escape from Hell"**

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The six kidnappers who raped Noura in Baghdad left her on the highway bleeding, her face bruised, her clothes torn and her feet bare. Her husband of 18 years was with her when she was kidnapped and he was stabbed and left for dead.
 * "Women Silenced by Rape"**

[[image:noura-3116.jpg align="right"]]
Onlookers who witnessed the kidnapping in the street, however, took Noura's husband to the hospital. The following morning, after the kidnappers pushed Noura out of their car by the highway and threatened to kill her if she described th em to anyone, a minibus driver acting as a good Samaritan picked her up, gave her his own shoes and coat and dropped her off at her sister's. The couple was reunited and a few days later they fled to Syria with their three children, partly to escape the violence and start a new life and partly to escape the stigma attached to rape victims and shield their children from ever learning of it. "I sat in Sit Zeinab and prayed that God would strike me dead," said Noura, a 34-year-old Sunni, referring to the mosque where thousands of Iraqi refugees, mostly Shiite but some Sunni, pray in Damascus. Today, almost two and a half years later, Noura--who asked that her real name not be used--and her husband live in anonymity in a suburb of Beirut. "There were too many Iraqis in Syria," Noura said, of the family's decision to move a second time. "We don't socialize with any Iraqis at all. My friends are all Lebanese. My 7-year-old doesn't even speak with an Iraqi dialect and doesn't understand Iraqi," said Noura, who bleaches her brunette hair blond and speaks in a mixture of dialects. Her marriage has been shattered since the brutal attack. "He hits me now sometimes, like just two days ago, because he got so frustrated and angry very quickly for no reason," she said in his presence, adding he never used to hit her "before the incident." Her husband stared at the floor.

Responding to the Crime
When her husband left the house, Noura also revealed that her brothers repeatedly told her husband they blamed him for failing to protect her. She said he has developed sexual impotence since the attack. "Men and women exposed to torture--and rape is a form of torture--have trouble rebuilding relations with their family because they feel like a stranger to each other. They develop emotional numbness, impotence, or sexual or physical aggression," said Suzanne Jabbour, director of the Restart Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture. Based in Tripoli, Lebanon, it is one of the few internationally accredited centers operating in the region. Noura and her husband go to the center for psychiatric help and counseling every week, and Noura said it has helped their relationship. Her husband, who used to not trust doctors, now looks forward to their weekly therapy sessions "because he feels good after he talks about his thoughts and feelings." But among Iraqi refugees living in crowded conditions in other countries, there is mainly silence about the sexual violence that women may have endured in Iraq. "There are thousands and thousands of rape cases, but the victims would rather die than talk about it," said Ahmed Ali, an Iraqi journalist who recently fled to Syria. He said he repeatedly tried to write about the pervasiveness of rape in Iraq since the war started, but no one would discuss it with him. Humanitarian organizations currently working with Iraqi refugees are also shy about discussing the sexual violence that refugees might have endured. "There are many cases of rape among Iraqi women and, to a lesser extent, men, but it's culturally too sensitive to discuss in the open," said one humanitarian aid worker in Damascus on the condition of anonymity. Among Iraqi refugees, now considered one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world, no one knows how many women live with the memory of a brutal attack, suffering in silence to protect themselves and their families from unbearable stigma.

Outreach Efforts Beginning
International humanitarian organizations working with refugees have just begun to provide outreach and rehabilitation programs for rape and sexual abuse victims. There are 2 million Iraqi refugees living outside of Iraq, mainly in Syria and Jordan, with several thousand in Lebanon, according to the United Nations. And every month thousands of Iraqis flee. Within Iraq, there are also an estimated 1.8 million internally displaced Iraqis. The New York-based International Rescue Committee is now setting up an operation in Amman, Jordan, to provide care for refugees. Statistics are not available on rape survivors among Iraqi refugees, but a 2003 Human Rights Watch report documents numerous cases similar to Noura's during an earlier phase in the war. In Lebanon, Noura and her family have no legal status, which means they struggle to live on whatever her husband manages to earn and local charity. But she has found relief at least in breaking the silence. "Last Valentine's my (13-year-old) daughter asked me: How come daddy didn't bring you flowers? I didn't know what to tell her," said Noura. "But I woke up in the middle of that night and found my husband kissing my hands quietly. He was crying." Heidi Lehmann is a senior advisor at the International Rescue Committee, one of the first international organizations to provide gender-based violence outreach and rehabilitation programs in conflicts such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, where Lehmann has worked with rape survivors.

Rape Endemic to War Zones
"It's amazing the similarities between war zones in terms of women being targeted and the stigma attached," said Lehmann. "Sexual violence is extremely common in war zones, and it's not a matter of if, but a matter of how often." In February, an Iraqi woman shocked viewers when she went on Al-Jazeera, one of the most watched television stations in the Arab world, alleging she had been raped by three Iraqi policemen after they took her in for questioning. The alleged victim is Sunni and the policemen she accused are Shiite. Her allegations unleashed a furious reaction along sectarian lines, offering an object lesson in what a rape survivor and her family might endure if they came forward. One Iraqi member of Parliament told Al-Jazeera that the woman, dubbed Sabrine, was "obviously lying about the rape . . . judging from the makeup she wears." He was referring to the traditional Arabic black Kohl that Sabrine wore in her eyes the day she spoke on Al-Jazeera; she had also worn a scarf that covered her hair and face but revealed her eyes. Noura says she endured her own version of humiliation and stigma after her mother and 12 siblings and neighbors found out about what had happened to her. "My mother and siblings in Baghdad all moved out of their neighborhood to get away from the looks and whispers," said Noura. "And today when my brothers call every now and then to check up on us, I feel ashamed to talk to them. I feel I've let them down somehow."

**Victims of Terror aren't Terrorists³**
The civil war in Iraq has stranded 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries. Washington says that up to 7000 of them may be resettled in the United States this year. But which ones? For the complete article, [|click here]

Liberation Day in Iraq- 4/9/2006⁷
"I still acutely remember the suffering and misery brought about by war. It would certainly be a better world if war were not necessary. Yet I also remember the desperation and anger I felt when the rest of the world chose to ignore the tragedy that was drowning my people. We begged a foreign power to free us from oppression, by force if necessary . . . If the antiwar movement dissuades the United States and its allies from going to war with Iraq, it will have contributed to the peace of the dead." - Jos� Ramos-Horta, East Timor's minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, and co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize

Sources:
(1) "Iraqi Refugees: Stories of Persecution and Flight." Refugees International. 30 Nov. 2006. 18 Apr. 2007 <[|http://www.refugeesinternational.org] (2) "Iraq: Refugees Speak of Escape From Hell." __Inter Press Service News Agency__. 2007. 19 Apr. 2007 <[|http://ipsnews.net>.] (3)Husarska, Anna. "Victims of Terror Aren'T Terrorists." Los Angeles Times 23 Apr. 2007. 2 May 2007 [|.] (7) http://www.michaelfuchs.org/razorsedge/index.php?story=2006-04-09

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