We call on those states responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq to terminate their illegal and immoral war, and express our solidarity with the Iraqi people in their struggle for peace, justice and self-determination.

In particular, we demand:

  1. An immediate end to the US and UK-led occupation of Iraq;
  2. Urgent action to fully address the current humanitarian crises facing Iraq’s people, including help for the more than three million refugees and displaced persons;
  3. An end to all foreign interference in Iraq's affairs, including its oil industry, so that Iraqis can exercise their right to self-determination;
  4. Compensation and reparations from those countries responsible for war and sanctions on Iraq;
  5. Prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes, human rights abuses, and the theft of Iraq's resources.

We demand justice for Iraq.

This statement was adopted by the Justice for Iraq conference in London on 19th July 2008. We plan to publish this more widely in future. If you would like to add your name to the list of supporters please contact us.

Sunday, 8 May 2011

The past is always with us

Fallujah, Iraq 2004 - Misrata, Libya 2011

Media Lens report (May 4th): In November 2004, the UN's Integrated Regional Information Network reported the impact of Operation Phantom Fury, a combined US-UK offensive, on Iraq’s third city, Fallujah:
'Approximately 70 per cent of the houses and shops were destroyed in the city and those still standing are riddled with bullets.' ('Fallujah still needs more supplies despite aid arrival,' http://www.irinnews.org, November 30, 2004)
An Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, reported of the city:
'It was completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Falluja used to be a modern city; now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didn’t see a single building that was functioning.' (Fadhil, ‘City of ghosts,’ 
http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=621:fallujah-iraq-2004-misrata-libya-2011&catid=24:alerts-2011&Itemid=68

Abuse

Tugging at Threads to Unspool Stories of Torture

NY Times reports (May 2nd): he first time the Iraqi Army arrested him, he said, soldiers burst into his shop in Baghdad, dragged him out in handcuffs and a blindfold, and took him to a filthy, overcrowded prison. Beatings, rape, hunger and disease were rampant, and he expected at any moment to be killed. He was held for four months, until December 2008.
During an interview here, the shopkeeper, 35, a balding, stocky man wearing a T-shirt and slacks, was calm and soft-spoken at first, but grew increasingly loud and agitated as he told his story. He described enduring episodes of torture, threats by captors to go to his house and rape his wife, and daily horrors like the suicide of a young prisoner who electrocuted himself with wires from a hot plate after being raped by soldiers.
The interview took place at a treatment center that opened in northeast Amman in December 2008 to help Iraqis who were tortured in their own country or who suffer from other war trauma. It is a branch of the Center for Victims of Torture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/health/03torture.html?_r=1
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