CPTnet
March 25, 2004

IRAQ: CPT Fast for Justice and Healing goes to Kerbala

Dozens of people from Iraqi Human Rights Watch, prepared with podium,
banners, speeches, carpets on the pavement, welcomed CPT when it brought its
Fast for Justice and Healing to Kerbala on March 16, 2004.

Kerbala is one of the great holy cities of Iraq, home to a Shi'a majority
and the site of the recent devastating suicide bombings.

Last year, on the first day of the invasion of Kerbala (April 5, 2003), a
secondary school teacher named Hussein Al-Ibrihimi gathered with some
friends and colleagues to form the Iraqi Human Rights Watch. They have been
documenting and responding to human rights abuses under the occupation ever
since. Especially troubling are the reports of young men being taken from
their homes and detained for months with no clear charges. Confiscated
property, ruined houses, and mourning wives and children are left in the
wake of these arrests.

Ahmed Fakhr al-Dein Zeni's four small children were at the witness, holding
posters asking for the return of their father. Genia Muhammad Ali, a
65-year-old widow whose two sons and nephew were detained last summer, sat
in a wheelchair and wept as she told her story. She still does not know the
charges against her sons.

Participants in the witness stood on a plaza between the two holy shrines
that commemorate the deaths of early Shi'a martyrs Hussein and Abbas.
Scores of people stopped and listened to readings from the Qu'ran
(deliberately chosen to emphasize the brotherhood of Christians and
Muslims), and speeches about the necessity for human rights for
detainees.

Later, il-Ibrahimi shared his thoughts with the team the about the day,
democracy in Iraq, and his hopes for the future. "Iraqis need more
education for democracy," he said. "The people there, they found it hard
to believe that you as Americans could speak against the American government
policies. For thirty-five years of dictatorship -- if you saw a
demonstration like this against Saddam, everyone would be killed,
immediately. So it will take a long time for the people to overcome that
fear."

Some of his students saw him at the demonstration, and asked why he did not
tell them about it; they want to join. He also shared stories of young
people who responded to last spring's military crisis
especially with regards to the thousands of articles of unexploded ordnance
littering Kerbala. The military authorities did not respond to repeated
requests for help to clear the bombs, so they started doing it themselves.
Over time, one young man removed hundreds of bombs. One evening, he
responded to a primary school headmaster's request to take care of a cluster
bomb -- school was supposed to start the next day and the children would be
in danger. The bomb exploded, killing him instantly. Such are the present
martyrs of Kerbala.