Migration Category: NCWP Old Site

A former US soldier was accused on Monday of raping and murdering a young Iraqi woman and killing her three family members in their home. According to the Washington Post, former Pfc. Steven D. Green and four other unnamed members of his regiment planned the attack over drinks after seeing the girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, near the checkpoint where they worked. The Post reports that Green has been charged with killing all four victims, and he and another soldier allegedly raped the girl, whose age has been estimated by neighbors and hospital officials at 15.

The crimes, allegedly carried out in March, were originally attributed to insurgents. In June, however, soldiers began discussing the incident when receiving counseling after two other members of their platoon were captured and beheaded by insurgents, according to the Post. Green had been honorably discharged because of a “personality disorder” before investigators were aware of the accusations, the Post reports. He was arrested Friday on a federal warrant.

With the urging of two women legislators, Iraqi prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for an independent investigation into the alleged rape and murders, and a reconsideration of the immunity to prosecution in Iraq granted to US soldiers , according to the Associated Press.

In Baghdad this weekend, two women legislators were targets of political violence. On Saturday, Taiseer Mashhadani, a Sunni lawmaker, and several of her bodyguards were abducted at a checkpoint in a Shiite neighborhood. The following day, Shiite Muslim lawmaker Liqa Yaseen and her driver escaped a kidnapping attempt, though eight of her bodyguards were captured, according to the Los Angeles Times .

The violence against both Sunni and Shiite women lawmakers comes during a time of continued civil unrest in Iraq. Recently, a car bomb hit the convoy of another Iraqi legislator, Iyad Jamaluddin. Although he escaped without injury, several of his bodyguards were injured, according to the Los Angeles Times. Other bombs exploded this weekend, killing over 80 people and wounding many more.

In response, the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Arab coalition in the legislature, announced a political boycott on Sunday. The political boycott aims to expedite the return of captured legislator Mashhadani by pressuring the government to invest resources in her discovery. Others, including Shiite bloc member Bassem Sherif, are concerned; Sherif recently told the Associated Press that “Such a boycott only serves the goals of the terrorists because they will feel that they have succeeded in hampering the political march in this country.”

A delegation led by the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, a non-profit organization, will travel to Guatemala later this summer to address violence against women. Guatemala has faced a rash of murders of women over the past five years. Estimates of the number of women murdered between 2001 and 2006 range from 1,800 to 2,400. The delegation plans to meet with local women’s rights activists, as well as government officials.

In May, 115 members of Congress, led by California Democratic Representatives Hilda Solis, Barbara Lee, and Tom Lantos, sent a letter to the US State Department urging diplomatic measures to curb the killings, as well as technical assistance and support to solve the crimes. Of the murders that have been reported, a mere 14 have been solved, according to Women’s eNews.

While, according to Center for Legal Action on Human Rights, the murder rate for both men and women in Guatemala has increased since the nearly four-decade long internal conflict ended in 1996, the murder of women often includes torture, sexual violence, or mutilation that is gender-based and which often goes unreported or misreported.

Amnesty International reports that the investigations that do take place are often marred by a lack of communication between governmental agencies, incomplete work, and the improper collection of evidence. Speaking to Women’s eNews, Amnesty International’s Women’s Human Rights Program coordinator Alyson Kozma noted, “Violence against women is acceptable not just in pop culture, but also in how the police and government respond or fail to respond to these murders.”

The United States has asked the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution criticizing the ruling Burmese military junta for its continued violations of human rights, including the house arrest of pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. According to BBC, this is the first time that the Council has addressed the junta’s human rights abuses.

The proposed resolution follows the visit of UN Undersecretary General Ibrahim Gambari last month. According to Reuters, his visit is the first by a high-ranking UN official in the last two years, and he met briefly with Suu Kyi during his visit. However, Reuters reports that the resolution is unlikely to pass without the support of China and Russia, who do not believe the situation falls under the Council’s purview. Both countries have the power to veto any resolution put before the Council.

Suu Kyi endured house arrest from 1989 to 1995 after she emerged as a leader of the opposition movement. The military regime refused to honor the results of the 1990 election, during which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy garnered an overwhelming majority of the popular vote. She was rearrested in May 2003, and the military junta recently extended her house arrest until May 2007, reports the Washington Post.

A pregnant woman and her cousin were killed by gunfire from US forces in Iraq as they sped through an observation post to meet the waiting father-to-be at the hospital. Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, a mother of two children, died as well as her 57-year old cousin, Saliha Mohammad Hassan. Jassim’s brother, who was driving the car, was wounded.

According to the Associated Press, Jassim’s brother said he saw no signs or warning from the US forces, only stopping the car when bullets entered the vehicle. The US military disputes this account, saying that the car entered a clearly marked prohibited area after receiving repeated warnings, AP reports.

“There must be a level of discipline imposed on the American troops and change the mentality which seems to think that Iraqi lives are expendable,” said Adnan Pachachi, a member of parliament and the former foreign minister of Iraq, according to Associated Press. The US military is investigating the incident.

Taliban militants killed three women working for Action Aid, a German-funded non-governmental organization, in the Jowzjan province today. Reuters reports that the three women were traveling a car when they were attacked by militants on motorcycles. Their driver also died in the attack.

This attack comes following one of the most violent days since the fall of the Taliban, when a United States military convoy traveling in the capital city of Kabul caused a 12-car traffic accident that killed five Afghan civilians and wounded many others. The accident sparked a riot in Kabul, and witnesses have reported that US troops fired on the crowd, though the US military claims to have only fired warning shots in the air to break up the riot, according to the New York Times. At least 14 people are now dead, and scores were treated at the Khair Khana Hospital with gunshot wounds, the Times reports.

Pent-up grievances in the Afghan population are mounting. Conditions in Kabul are dire. Over a million people are homeless. The city, which had a population of 500,000, has ballooned with refugees returning to around 4 million, with many jobless and homeless.

In addition, another school for girls was arsoned in the past two weeks, bringing the total of schools attacked to more than 300.

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The House of Representatives yesterday passed House Concurrent Resolution 90, sponsored by Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA), which condemns the violent murder of more than 400 women over the past 16 years in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. The resolution denounces the murders and asks that the United States government engage the Mexican government in order to solve the open cases and work to prevent any more deaths. A similar resolution has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

According to the Resolution, 56 of the 400 murders have been committed since 2004 and 152 of the women were also sexually assaulted. Most of the murders have gone unsolved, and human rights groups have faulted the local government for mishandling the investigations. The Resolution cites the investigation of the Mexican federal special prosecutor, which found that more than 100 government officials had acted negligently in their investigation of the murders. According to Amnesty International, however, none of these officials have been held accountable.

Said Congresswoman Solis on the passage of the Resolution: “We are one step closer to bringing justice to the families of Ciudad Juarez. Passage of this important measure signifies strong US Congressional support for the families of Juarez and the need to address this tragic human rights situation. Binational cooperation between the US and Mexico will help bring an end to the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez and closure to their families.”

Thousands gathered in 12 different locations yesterday to support Sudan’s Darfur region and rally against the genocide-in-progress. The largest of these rallies was on the National Mall in Washington, DC. “Never again,” the speakers yelled to masses in front of the nation’s capitol. “Never again,” shouted back the diverse, impassioned crowd. The rally lasted a little over four hours and took place in front of the US Capitol. Over 45 political leaders, activists, writers, and celebrities took the stage to speak about the genocide in Darfur, which has left 180,000 dead and about 2 million displaced.

Speakers and participants at the rally came from all walks of life, spanning religions, political views, international lines, languages, and generations. The speakers spoke to this diversity, saying that we are all one people. Another message of the Save Darfur rally was one of personal action. Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel encouraged the crowd to go forward and speak out against the atrocities in Darfur, saying, “Silence helps the killers, never the victims.” Other speakers included Nick and George Clooney, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power, and US Senator Barack Obama.

According to Save Darfur, the organization responsible for the rally, “The humanitarian situation remains catastrophic, due to ongoing state-sponsored violence, layers of aid obstruction, the lack of an overall humanitarian strategic plan, and the weakened state of displaced Sudanese. Refugees and internally displaced civilians (IDPs) have been displaced for long periods, they are in terribly weakened states, they are subject to sexual abuse and attack, they do not have adequate shelter, and a new famine is feared.”

“Rape has become a hallmark of the crimes against humanity in Darfur,” according to Save Darfur. “Families must continue collecting wood, fetching water or working their fields, and in doing so, women daily put themselves or their children at the risk of rape, beatings or death as soon as they are outside the camps, towns or villages.”