Saturday, March 11, 2023

Iraq cracks down on rights, US Ambassador Romanowski continues to alienate the Kurds

Alex MacDonald (MIDDLE EAST EYE) reports on Iraq's ban on booze:


Last month, the Iraqi government published long-proposed legislation banning the import of alcoholic beverages into the country, no doubt including Saddam's beloved Johnny Walker Black Label.

According to the new legislation, the sale or production of alcohol in Iraq is now illegal, while the General Customs Authority in a statement said it had "given orders to all customs centres to ban the entry of all types of alcoholic drinks".

The legislation, originally passed in 2016 but only becoming law after its publication in the official gazette on 20 February, is unlikely to affect the autonomous Kurdistan region that controls its own border crossings.

No, as Julian Bechoca (RUADW) noted last week, it's not going into practice in the Kurdistan.  Hadi Mizban (AFP) reports, "Some see the measures as an attempt by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to head off potential political challenges from religious conservatives. They say another motive may be to distract from economic woes, including rising prices and wild currency fluctuations."


This is one aspect of a never-ending crackdown on freedoms and liberties in Iraq.  Leave a post on social media and risk being arrested.  Now they're going after those who expose truths in real life, face-to-face.  RUDAW reports:


Dozens of Baghdad’s teachers and exam proctors on Sunday protested an arrest warrant issued for one of their colleagues who exposed a case of fraud relating to a former police official’s son.

Uday al-Salihi, the head of the examination department in al-Rusafa’s education directorate, in February removed a young man from a ministerial examination, accusing him of impersonating the son of former Federal Police Commander Raed Shaker Jawdat, and taking the test on his behalf.

According to Salihi, once he was removed from the exam room, the young man admitted to receiving 5,000 dollars to take the exam instead of Jawdat’s son.

Nonetheless, when the case was brought to relevant authorities, it was not the impersonator that faced the legal repercussions, but rather Salihi, who was served an arrest warrant. It is not yet clear what the proctor has been accused of.

“This is a message for everyone, if you see someone cheating or taking exams on behalf of someone else, just keep your mouth closed and do not speak,” Nidhal Muhammad, a school principal, told Rudaw's Halkawt Aziz on Sunday.


More attacks on the rights of the people?  Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:


As Kurds across the Kurdistan Region marked traditional clothing day on Thursday, Iraqi security forces manning the gates at Kirkuk University denied entry to students dressed in Kurdish outfits.

“We tried to enter from the main gate, but they told us that we were not allowed,” a geography student at Kirkuk University who dressed up in traditional clothing alongside scores of his fellow Kurdish students told Rudaw English on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They prohibited us from entering the campus from all three gates, telling us there was no such thing as national dress day. We remained in the parking lot until the school day was over,” he said.

Rudaw reached out to the university, but they declined to comment on the ban.

[. . .]

“One year, they ban raising the Kurdistan flag. Then, they ban Kurdish clothing. If it continues like this, in a couple of years they will forbid Kurds from entering the university altogether,” said another student.


Next weekend will see the 20th anniversary of the start of the illegal war.  AFP notes:


The years of violence have deeply altered society in Iraq, long home to a diverse mix of ethnic and religious groups. The minority Yazidis were targeted in what the UN called a genocidal campaign, while much of the once vibrant Christian community has been driven out.

Tensions also simmer between the Baghdad federal government and the autonomous Kurdish authority of northern Iraq, especially over oil exports.

In October 2019, young Iraqis led a nationwide protest movement that vented frustration at inept governance, endemic corruption and interference by Iran, sparking a bloody crackdown that left hundreds dead.

Despite Iraq's immense oil and gas reserves, about one third of the population of 42 million lives in poverty, while some 35 percent of young people are unemployed, says the UN.

Politics remain chaotic and parliament took a year, marred by post-election infighting, before it swore in a new government last October.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani has vowed to fight graft in Iraq, which ranks near the bottom of Transparency International's corruption perceptions index, at 157 out of 180 countries.


Earlier this week, I noted that the new US Ambassador to Iraq was being seen as anti-Kurdish because she can never note the Kurds in her Tweets.  That was based upon social media perceptions and two friends in the State Dept.  This site's the only one to comment on this perception.  I have no idea why news organizations have staff because this is something anyone could have weighed in on.  But they don't.  I'm not sure who they think they are protecting or helping.  It's certainly not the American people and it's not even the US government that's being protected.  If an ambassador is getting a bad reputation, that's something tax payers have a right to know since they're the ones paying the salary of the ambassador and the costs to house the ambassador in the host country.  


At any rate, the item that went up here was used to again argue to Ambassador Alina Ramoanowski that she needed to find a way to start including the Kurds in her Tweets.  I knew it would be, that was discussed with both friends at the State Dept before I posted it here. 


She did post a Tweet.  One.  And my friends are much more positive about it than I am.







That's the same Tweet.  One version is in English.  And that's why I'm not impressed.  She's seen as anti-Kurd.  What's the other language used?  I don't read Kurdish.  I can read the non-English Tweet . . . because it's in Arabic.  


If the point is to prove that you're not anti-Kurd by Tweeting about the Kurds, I don't really get how you change that perception by Tweeting in Arabic and not Kurdish.


The following sites updated:


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