this statement is seeking endorsements

–
On the imminent execution of three women in Iraq:

THERE ARE TWO PARTS TO THIS MESSAGE:

1. STATEMENT in English, Arabic and French.

Please click here to endorse:

http://www.brusselstribunal.org/hanging.htm for other languages and updates

2. What we can do (PRACTICAL ACTION) .

PART ONE: STATEMENT

We are working to gather endorsers for this statement and to
constitute a team to organize coordinated action on behalf of the
three women who face imminent execution. Please send endorsements or
expressions of willingness to work to hanaalbayaty@gmail.com
______________

We hope all endorse, distribute widely, organize and act. Please reply
to hanaalbayaty@gmail.com

Statement by Hana Albayaty, Ian Douglas, Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iman
Saadoon, Dirk Adriaensens and Ayse Berktay (14 February 2007)

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

FULL