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  1. Signatures
    1,404 out of 2,000
    Petitioning
    1. Iraqi Minister of Human Rights (+ 3 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • Iraqi Minister of Human Rights (Muhammad Shia al-SUDANI)
      • Iraqi Minister of Women's Affairs (Hoshyar Mahmud ZEBARI)
      • Permanent Iraqi Representative to the UN (Hamid al-BAYATI)
      • Prime Minister (Nori Kamal Al-Maliki)
  2. Created By
    MADRE
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

On June 10th, MADRE learned that pro-democracy activists who gathered in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square were brutally attacked by un-uniformed forces. MADRE’s Iraqi partner group, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), states that activists who gathered in the square to continue their weeks of protests for democracy, jobs and an end to corruption were beaten by armed men who were unleashed to disperse the protests.

OWFI also reports that women were specifically targeted for sexual attacks. Four young women OWFI activists were violently groped and sexually assaulted, and one 19-year-old woman was attacked by a group of men who attempted to forcibly strip off her clothes. One woman lost a tooth in the attack. Another OWFI activist, a young man, tried to intervene and was severely beaten.

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Condemn Attack on Peaceful Protesters in Iraq and End the Sexual Assault of Women Protesters

To Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iraqi Officials:

We, feminist activists from around the world, stand in support of our sisters and brothers peacefully demonstrating for basic rights in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square.

On June 10, demonstrators were brutally targeted with sexual violence and beatings by men who were reportedly bussed in by the thousands to disrupt the weekly protest. Protesters suffered broken bones, knife wounds and beatings. Several women were severely beaten and violently groped; armed attackers attempted to forcibly strip off the women’s clothing. The activists, who work with the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, report that their attackers were organized and paid by government security forces who used the un-uniformed men to avoid accountability for the violence.

As feminists, we strongly condemn assaults against peaceful protesters and the specifically gender-based violence against women. As in so many of our countries, the use of sexual violence against Iraqi women is designed to terrorize, shame and silence those women who dare to exercise their fundamental rights as citizens and raise political demands in the public sphere. We stand with our sisters who exercise their rights to political participation and dissent.

These attacks represent a noted escalation of violence against protesters in Iraq as well as a crime and a fundamental violation of human rights. We call on the government to uphold its obligations to guarantee freedom of peaceful assembly and to respond to the demands of demonstrators.

[Your name]

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