Counting for the Iraq elections may be more exciting than expected. In the present case only 20,000 votes Prime Minister Al-Maliki and the secular Allawi. Iraq’s former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who heads a bipartisan secular coalition, has greater support than the Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, according to the latest figures from the Iraqi election.
Around two-thirds of the roughly 12 million votes from the election 7 March is counted. It might take a long time to put a government if the results for solitaire is so smooth – and thus can be a dangerous power vacuum occurs in the unstable country.

Allawi leads with 9000 votes after 79 percent of the votes are counted, according to figures from Iraq’s election commission, which was announced Tuesday evening. But there is still a very close race, and it can not be ruled out that the situation is again changing.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki still has the lead, which he has had it since counting began immediately after the election of the National Assembly. In the capital Baghdad is about 60 percent of the vote counted.

This leads Al-Maliki’s alliance clearly, and the preliminary count indicates that he has gone up compared to the previous election. This leads his alliance with 65,000 votes over Allawis Iraqiya-block. Coalition of religious Shiite groups are number three. it is evident that the two major political blocs are very close to each other. But telling the last 21 percent can change the whole picture.

Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and his main rival lyad Allawi, are both out to get 87 seats in the country’s parliament.
The results of the election in Iraq is still characterized by great excitement about the results. At the same time lacks the votes of Iraqis abroad. Something that is many thousands of. These voices can change the whole picture and the outcome of the election.

Refrences:
1-sumaria news
2-alarabyia news
3-tamozz election mentoring organization
4-aftanposten news papers
5-ruteries

Sunday’s election for a new National Assembly has been a bloody start. At least 24 people have died in various attacks. Several rockets, grenades and bombs hit Baghdad as early as the morning hours on election day. The death toll is rising steadily.

Most attacks were directed against Baghdad, but there have been reports of violence elsewhere in the country. At least four people were killed and eight were wounded in an explosion in a residential area in the capital, and one was killed in an explosion in another building nearby. Twelve people were killed and eight were wounded in an explosion in a building somewhere else. The 200,000 security guards who are stationed only in the capital have failed to halt the attacks.
Also in Falluja, Baquba and Samarra’s people have been killed in various attacks Sunday. In the village of Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad, was at least three people were wounded when shells struck at a polling station, . Despite the bloody start of the election, is not all deterred from voting.

“We are in a war situation. We operate in a battlefield and the warriors of our fear the worst, “said the security spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, according to Reuters. “If we have to crawl to get to the polls, so we crabs, “said Ali Abdul Wahab, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We are Iraqis. We are not afraid”, said Abdul Azak to the New York Times.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the attackers too much noise to impress. Also Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr urged his countrymen to use the voting rights: “even if a choice in the shadow of an occupation is not legitimate, I urge Iraqis to participate in order to prepare the ground for a termination of the occupation,” said al-Sadr at a news conference in Tehran.

Nearly 19 million Iraqis have the right to vote in the election of new parliament. Around 6,200 candidates and a wealth of political parties and election alliances competing for the 325 seats and many fear that the election will have the sectarian violence in the country to flare up again.

Al-Qaida has threatened to sabotage the election, but has no support. A large part of the Sunni Arab minority, which boycotts previous elections, expected this time to participate, even though hundreds of Sunni candidates refused to stand for election as a result of ties to Saddam Hussein’s old regime.

Election campaign has been marked by violence, and Saturday was four people were killed and over 50 wounded by a car bomb in Najaf.

Rumors of manipulating of elections especially in outside Iraq elections,There are 30,000 Iraqis in Denmark, which has since Friday been able to vote for the election of the new National Assembly in their home country. Several irregularities and shows that several were voting for just having shown up copies of identification papers. The commander of the winding up of the Iraqi elections in Denmark, Hara Nihad, denies that it may be invalid ballots in the ballot box.

The morning attacks and bombs in Baghdad targeted areas known of there loyalty to list that will stand against major governmental lists ,many reports of people afraid to go because of the bombs and rumors of fraud
The future of Iraqi is on the rocks for the next few hours

Many Iraqi people today who had been living in European countries since they war in Iraq and went to vote in the Iraqi elections of 2010 where face with the fact they can not vote ,as the employs of the Iraqi election commission explain to them that they had no enough papers to prove they are Iraqi people ,the requirements for voter identifications in the elections is Iraqi passport type G and another Iraqi ID ,personal ID ,birth certificate or rational card ,no copies are accepted.

The problem is that most people who live outside Iraq are refugees who escaped Iraq war and had lost everything ,most of them left in 2006 and they had S type passport ,this is a knowledge passport by Iraqi government and by the countries that issued them resident permits ,but not acknowledge by the employs of the Iraqi higher commission ,they don’t accept any ID from European countries that acknowledge that the holder is Iraqi like driving car licenses of bank cards.

Many Iraqi in UK and Finland demonstrate in front of the election polls calling for there rights to vote ,several Iraqi powers start to talk about the commission being under control of Kurdish and Iranian powers to prevent Arabic Sunnis from voting ,some European cities witness Iraqi embassies sending busses to bring Kurdish voter to voting centers a service they did not provide for Arabic voters ,a witness in Netherlands swear that he went to voting center and did not find any employs who can speak Arabic ,most of them speaks Farsi and Kurdish.

2 commission employs in Jordan catch as they added voting cards to the polls ,monter agents were forbid from checking the boxes that are transferred from the elections posts.

In Iraq the big parties broke the role of stopping any campaign advertising today and a rumor of the Iraqi PM will address a speech to the voters ,made many other leaders announce they will follow his step allot of Iraqis start to feel afraid that the results will be fixed ,they hope tomorrow will pass in peace with no clouds of doubt circling the sky of democracy in Iraq

Refrences
Baghdadia tv
Shargia tv
Silent majority program, callers depositions

Since the morning and polling operations started for displaced Iraqis located outside of Iraq, after the first phase of the elections ended Thursday, Which included the employees of the security services, army and police, prisoners, the sick and continue for three days.
The early voting for the army and police took place amid violence that left 17 dead and wounded
Iraqis in 16 Arab countries and in Europe and America went to elect their representatives , when there are no official statistics of the number of Iraqis abroad, estimated by the High Commissioner for Refugees, as hundreds of thousands while according to the Iraqi government the numbers around two million, while sources confirm in humanitarian organizations that they exceed five million spread over Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, United Arab Emirates and the European countries, as well as America, Canada and Australia.
There have been rumors about attempts by influential parties in the government of Iraq to keep them away from the elections and the accusing the of being Baathists and opponents of the political process and allowing them to vote for the election means they will support people who will effect the political process
This lead to rumors of attempts to deprived many Iraqis of elections in Yemen, Belgium, Malaysia, Indonesia
several attempts by some political Iraq to draw attention to the outside and carrying Iraqi by the Election Commission to open stations to vote for Iraqis abroad and visits from some politicians, including Tareq al-Hashemi, Iyad Allawi, and others, which organized rallies in order to gain their votes and making promises to improve their conditions
The election Commission announced the opening of centers in both Syria and Jordan, Iran, Egypt, UAE, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Austria and Denmark, to the United States, Canada and Australia.

The Commission has allocated to the voters more than 1000 stations, spread over 45 cities were selected according to the intensity of Iraqis in these countries.
Rumors of many people in Iran were not able to vote and in Syria after the commission ask them to bring new Iraqi passports and refuse to acknowledge old passports

fears of fraud marred the vote of which is still subject to the direct administration of the Iraqi government. private polling stations abroad were without observers or from the Arab League or international observers
many complaines from the candidates about not being able to censorship by a vote of the armed forces.
According to the law, the vote took place with the presence of the agents of the candidates , while the voting stations of the armed forces fall within the security zones was difficult to access, lead to increasing uncertainty and the possibility of election fraud.
With rise of many complaining from agents to monter the elections not being able to access to such centers surrounded by the guise of security. With frequent loss of information on the closing of ballot boxes in Najaf and Karbala. Rumors of an Iraqi ink used in the vote of the electorate that the worst kinds of ink can be removed from the voting forms easily.
For its part, showed the Shiite authority in Najaf Wednesday concern about the Iraqi government’s attempts to rig the elections through the use of pens can erase ink on the voting papers before the special voting coalitions amid warnings of fraud in the absence of control of Parliament

, also the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari,accussed the neighboring countries of trying to influence the results of the elections held next Sunday,

Zebari did not speak for the actions of specific, but said that the intervention included financial support for certain parties

According to the candidate from the Iraqis list, lead by former PM alawy, they will challenge the results of the special ballot, pointing to the monitoring list for many “irregularities” in the special ballot.
And talked About the incident of helicopters droppeing leaflets in different parts of Baghdad, the latest in Adhamiya, in the Mansour district, against the Iraqi Listand asking people not to vote for it
The deputies of al-tawafiq and Iraqi list announced that the process of voting in legislative elections that took place today, was marred by significant breaches,
As Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday,accussed one of the political figures he declined to name, to compromise the electoral process by trying to storm into the polling station after closure, while it detects that the security forces in Anbar province, detained a number of officers attempted to practice fraud in the voting sector.

Many of the employees of the security forces in the various governorates of Iraq did not cast their ballots due to the absence of names in the voter registers for the private ballot.
The Electoral Commission acknowledged that there was a shortage of the names of the employees of army , but attributed this to lack of cooperation and defense and interior ministries with it, and indicated that the two have delayed sending the names until yesterday, and most of those names ware not clear,
However, they said it would equip the centers securities and tools required to sign at the same time that those who were unable to vote in the special ballot may vote in the suffrage on Sunday.

A source in the Electoral Commission in Rusafa side of Baghdad, Friday, said that 75 thousand to 80 thousand observers and an agent of a political entity registered to monitor the voting process on 7 March
While on Friday the preachers in the city of Mosul, urged people to participate in the elections and choose the best, as well as to scrutinize the candidate’s curriculum vitae and his achievements, and not there propaganda and slogans.

Refrences:
Iraqi media network
Sumaria news
NCCI.ORG
Independent observers

Today the election started with 800,000 Iraqi participation in the especial poll for army forces and prisoners and hospital patients and personals, in Kurdistan the election started at 10 am in the morning showing very normal and smooth operation with no curfew and only check point restricting admitions on cars coming from mousl and Arabic regions
according to source in the Department of the Ministry of Peshmerga, in the Kurdistan Regional Government, , a number of elements of guards “Peshmerga” in the city of Arbil were not allowed to vote because of the absence of their names in the records of voters, pointing out that those who did not find their names to file a lawsuit against the Commission, the commission explain that all the members who had been registed in the polls had voted.

The source in the Kirkuk office of the Independent High Commission for Elections, said the 17 polling stations had opened since eight o’clock in the morning, Thursday, to receive covered by the Special vote in the province, while many complained that members of the army 12 regiment due to the absence of names in the records of voters ..
While the number of candidates complained from Basra fears of forging cases of exploitation of public money by working in the candidate lists, where the government resorted to fully exploit the power outlets to promote their campaigns
While Tamooz Organization for observe of the elections, announced , the registration of more than 20 violations in thi Qar province through the process of voting on who said that the percentage of participation of more than 60% of the electorate.

And as the polls closed to vote for in the Iraqi elections, a bombings took place with 14 people, half of the Iraqi army and 25 injured in 3 attacks, two suicide bombers targeted two election ad litem for the security forces in northern Baghdad and west.

Baghdad election monitoring were hard cause no one was allowed to bring mobiles phone to the elections polls making it hard to call on any case of violation. Inspite of the curfew Baghdad has seen number of vehicles violating the campaign that she toured with slogans of candidates, while not seen Mosul and Anbar, although certain problems the inability of a number of observers access to polling centers due to security situation

References:
1-iraqi higher commission of election
2-tamouze monitoring organization
3-sun network for monitoring
4-aswat al-Iraq web

The fear is increasing ahead of elections in Iraq next month which could result in political vacuum and chaos, as many analysts fear. A major Sunni group boycotted the election last week, to return after few days to enter again after preventing their candidates from running.

Five years have passed since Iraqis last time Iraq chose a new National Assembly. Previous elections ended with a deep rift, months of government negotiations and a prime minister from a party with 0.2% of the vote in his faovr.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari did not spend much time as prime minister, as a party colleague Nuri al-Maliki took over all the years after. Since then, Maliki ruled the country.

7th of March will see elections for a new national assembly in Iraq, where sectarian violence has decreased significantly since the last election and U.S. forces are now on the way out.

Although Maliki has clear ambitions for re-election, and last year’s local elections in this respect was encouraging for him, has an increasing number of supporters turned their backs on him.

Iraq’s Supreme Islamic Council (ISCI) and Moqtada al-Sadr Shi’ite movement have both left the former government coalition and formed the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA).

Parts of Maliki’s Dawa party has turned up with the powerful Shi’ite groups, and so have the Iraqi reform movement (NRT).

The only agree to run together to prevent Shi’ite voices from splitting, but still think that Maliki must go. It can be a recipe for election victory, but is not a good recipe for government negotiations.

Nuri al-Maliki set himself for election at the head of law state Coalition, which did well in local elections in January 2009, primarily in Baghdad and Basra. When the situation was relatively calm, but in recent months, a number of powerful bombs demonstrated the strong differences that hides beneath the surface.

Maliki’s sudden witch hunt on the secular Shi’ite politicians and former members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baath party has also attracted reactions both in Iraq and internationally.

A government-appointed commission has banned nearly 500 politicians ahead of elections, and only 26 of these have since been converted into the decision.

Analysts accuse Maliki for wanting to whip up the secular differences to prevent corruption, lack of security and government inadequacy becomes issue in election campaign.

U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, recently accused the commission leaders to run Iran’s errand, and claimed to sit on the evidence of the close ties to the regime in Tehran.

A Sunni Muslim group that they will boycott the election. A party spokesman says the decision is a result of Iran’s influence in the election process.

The national front for dialogue is led by Saleh al-mutlaka, a sitting member of parliament who has been barred from the election, they return after they saw they had better chance to run than not to become part of any future deals.

The front has joined the Iraqiya, a secular block led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Kurds in northern Iraq are eagerly forward to the election, knowing that the chances of a Kurdish state will increase as the divisions in the south.

The ownership of oil fields around Kirkuk is still controversial, as are the contracts that the Kurdish self-rule government on its own has signed with foreign oil companies.

If Iraq really survive this extremely difficult year, I am extremely optimistic about the future. But there is a real risk to the contrary, that things will unravel completely. People feel hopeless and they want change but to whom, every party is using money in large amounts crushing young and small candidates, also no one know if at last minute who will show the faith card and ask people to vote for them or go to hell.

Future holds either hope or fear, what will happen?

March 7th will tell.

I spend a lot of time on the Internet and often I saw them entering into in any location that show from its title that it supports free-thinking and provided a space for people for expression and to think outside the box and break the traditional beliefs and principles that we want to impose on ourselves, though some defend them because they are defending the fundamentals of historical and cultural in Iraq,
Facebook any other websites that work as social sits and had groups for people with common interest are different from bloggers and places that had influence to act as media or news papers ,these societies for people to interact and share there feeling with friends on common ground with groups who suggest that the participants will discuss a particular subject has ramifications for areas considered to be red and dangerous to others, there is a difference be suspended between the ideas of others and imposing your beliefs on a newspaper article or magazine and between intervening to impose your views on the personal site for a person or a special forum for those interested in a particular substance, it will be like jumping over the wall of other people’s houses and imposing their own forum for consideration and invade their privacy
This group of people are active and effective on Facebook and have made a request to add each character with known wall comments attracts the attention of other Iraqis ,and to offer ideas characterized by freedom of expression and exit from the normal pattern,
Soon you find them up to the attack and post comments to impose control on others, to moneter any word that differ with their political, intellectual and religious, they remind me of those whostop girls in the street and required them to wear hijab (scarf) , a new kind of terrorists rise on the web in the Iraqi society since 2003, feeding on the intellectual and cultural conflict in community Middle East

They are quick to shut our mouths, and the mechanism they us is to make sure for every one that we had jusr offended god ,and all holly symbols in Iraq history and religion ,we are insulting holly spirits and saying unpatriot words ,just because we crossed there beliefs and there ideas
Tell me how they aske us to speak in politics, the invasion of religious parties on poltical life it? Talk about our problems? Talking about freedom?

How we can express if they keep shutting us and driving us out of the streets and forcing us to apply for asylum at the gates of human rights advocates ,and to begs to save us from our fellow nationals, we do not even escape them on the space fantasy of the Internet ,they do not want us to express our self’s
Does God and our beloved country Iraq want us to be hypocrites conceal our questions and thoughts , indignation , bitterness of our situation , discuss our concerns and ask questions and seek answers, what will Iraq and god benefits if we kept our mouth shut? If our creation was not to think and find evidence then why we where created with brains to think and analysis?

We talk because love our country and we feel bad for it ,if we say thinks that are little off on religion or politics it is our rights ,we had the right to talk so for those who act as Gods and watch our words please I hope they accept my request to form them the group of shut your mouth ,so they can shut our mothers and we fight back, cause words are like bolts and ideas had wings and we will never quit our right to express ourselves.

The people of Haiti suffered one of the largest humanitarian disaster in modern history, when the earthquake hit on January 13 last, followed by a sequel of earthquakes that killed more than (200000) two hundred thousand people dead and tens of thousands of injuries, the displacement of thousands of families, and the collapse of the country’s infrastructure, resulting in The difficulty of delivering aid to the health and emergency food to survivors. Reports and photographic films on the situation reflected the tragic situation of children of Haiti, including falling under ruthless and inhuman children trafficking gang groups manipulating the harsh conditions, smuggling children out of their country.

On the basis of its humanitarian mission, Iraqi Al-Amal Association (one of the leading iraqi NGOs in field of human rights ,women and child rights and conflict resolution) started to make a donation for the children of Haiti a symbolic amount of two thousand dollars by the World Organization (International Board on Books for Young People-IBBY-), based in Switzerland, which represents a network of individuals around the world are interested in closer links between the children and to provide books for them.

Solidarity with Haiti’s children is a task for all good people to provide material assistance necessary for the continuation of their lives, as well as psychological treatment to alleviate the terrible shock, and to restore normal life in their country.

Politicians have begun visiting religious leaders, which means elections must be close. This month, the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, along with the vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, went to Najaf to visit the ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. After meeting the ayatollah, Maliki issued a statement giving official refutation to recent criticisms of Sistani from Saudi clerics and clearly currying favour with voters.

There are laws that are supposed to restrict such behaviour but every individual, party and bloc engaged in the election is willing to use almost all means available to win votes. And in Najaf especially, winning votes means aligning with the religious powers.

As 7th March draws nearer it’s not just al-Maliki who is trying to play the faith card. Even the non-Islamic parties are keen to convince the electorate that their campaign is endorsed by the religious authorities.

Hasan Ibrahimi, the regional coordinator of the Shams network, which is concerned with monitoring elections in Iraq, explained this phenomenon.

“We do expect this behaviour from politicians because, in order to get popular support, the support approval of the religious authorities is vital,” adding, “In the previous elections, politicians also used religious authorities to further their ends. The clerics didn’t declare support for any party over another. Any rumours about such support are mere electoral propaganda.”

The influence of religious leaders in Iraqi politics has increased greatly since the fall of Saddam, with the religious authorities not only freer but perfectly placed to step into the power vacuum left by the disappearance of the Ba’ath party.

In Najaf, the most prominent ayatollahs, Sistani, Basheer al-Najafi, Muhammad al-Hakeen and Muhammad al-Fayyad all agreed not to interfere in the political or electoral process. Although other notable religious personalities, such as ayatollah al-Yaaqoubi, whose party had seats on provincial councils and in the current parliament, have created their own political parties and started to promote them, those who have steered clear of an overt involvement in political affairs have actually retained greater influence on voters’ choices.

In the 2005 elections, turnout reached 70%, with many voters attending polls because religious authorities not only supported polling but declared participation a relgious dutyShi’ite political blocs were particularly successful in 2005, claiming that this stance effectively endorsed their list along sectarian lines.

Today, there is concern that a similar situation will come about in this election. Naser al-Asadi, a clergyman and a member of Sadeq al-Shirazi’s office in Karbala, acknowledges that the religious authorities play a role in the election.

“This role, however, shouldn’t be to clearly announce its support to any particular political entity,” he said, adding that such promotion is a contradiction of the status and obligations of religious leaders.

“The religious authority should be the big umbrella over all parties. If any party is deprived from having shelter under this umbrella, the religious authorities loses its credibility.”

Some political parties are still distrustful of the religious authorities, believing they may choose to declare support for one party at the expense of others, despite assurances to the contrary.

Hussein al-Amiri, the director of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) Information office in Karbala, said that these fears are exaggerated and told Niqash that “IHEC’s instructions ban the use of religion in the electoral campaigns,” adding that, “The penalties for violation of these instructions are severe and include depriving those who do so the right to compete in elections. It’s a powerful check that parties would dare not break.”

After today bloody day in Baghdad ,I express my emotions in words ,just to express how I felt like a human away from politics and big words , my dear friend and one of great Iraqi activists and bloggers Basma Al-kateeb helped in translation it to English ,her words make my emotions more clear ,I want to share it with you ,this is about people ,who lived and die ..in Baghdad today

.I hate week days..

Now I hate to watch the news,And see how many are dead and how many injured score of people went? Now I hate the days of the week,Especially those that have not become deadly until now,It Terrifies me to the point of death ,Who’d come out today? To go and where to?

Is the next massacre going to be coming Friday? Saturday or Thursday?
I hate the exclusive channels, Showing us images directly from the event

Why aren’t we convinced with what the Spokesperson has to say, he says that out of 58 wounded.. 50 went home..walking!!
And all that blew out were some windows and four houses!!

Why do you insist that we see Iraqi women mourning their deaths, striking their faces in the streets, blood covering their faces?
Are you information channels? Or terrorist gangs?
Why Take us out of our drugged status of feeling secure, our coma,
Why assasinate our rosy dreams?
Now I hate the news
The days of the week
Especially non-bloody ones
Death is playing with us for the sake of playing a dirty game
Wraps the days of the week and we do not know when to expect the next explosion to come today or another day, it’s a Russian roulette game..every day
I hate the news now
my page on Facebook is filled with black
Pictures of the bombing and a hundred dead
here
And 30 there, we remember
the security plan, and the criminals behind this are known :
.. either Terrorist, Baathist ,sectarian …then the Parliament deplores, it even holds an emergency session on security , later on.. some officers will be dismissed
And a ban on broadcasting love songs
How I love the official Spokesperson
his Words tranquilize me..make me feel assured and safe,
He convinced me that the situation is good, even though few terrorists slipped tight security measures..and did this act..but..they managed to catch a hundred of them..so what
!
I wish I was born in a life where I didn’t have any nationality wish
I live in a world without religion or ethnic or national, in a world where we don’t expect the world to collapse after we go to the bathroom..I wish I don’t have to put on casual outdoor clothes, before going to sleep..just so that I can escape in the middle of the night running in the streets..wearing decent clothes
And we don’t have to bid our families farewell before we go to work every day
Now I hate all the political parties
Secular and religious, and environmental
all those who Paid for this bloodshed to sustain
parliamentary privileges
they Become everything, I hate
Even myself and my clothes,
Identity I wish we live
without weeks
Horror stories
Elections
And talk shows
Lord when will you rid us of it or get rid of us all
Because life has become …Comic?
People die, others get richer..quickly..fabulous..now..our blood has become so cheap
Our losses are not valued humanitarianly..
How Iraqis will die? are we going to overcome other global news..wars..disasters..Haiti..football game when Egypt won Cameron?
Why stop the world because Abu Chmagh (abu means a male with) Abu Ghurteh (Bedwin head cover) Abu Qat (wearing a suit)and Abu Turban, Abu Gel hair, Abu Sala (man who brags about being a regular prayer person)..many Abu and Abu and Abu ..
Death is inevitable..we know that..what about our day..of the week..they all turned bloody? Our lives have turned bloody…

Tomorrow we will go to work

Will buy the newspaper
We will not consider looking at photos of the bombing in the paper,
Because the channels forced us to know them by heart..
Each of us will be accused of being behind the bombing,
Each of us will point fingers to the international hidden plot..and factor..
we endure Checkpoints and Inspection
We thank God for the security plan
And Mr. spokes person,
we accetp to our dose of security opium , live on, waiting..and waiting..for the news..
this week passes, and we continue…to play the game of Russian Roulette

The victims included four men and one woman, all were volunteer workers in the organization, the women was a computer engineer, and a prominent women’s rights activist was shot in front of her 5-year-old daughter

Meanwhile a car bomb went off near an Iraqi military patrol close to the office, wounding two soldiers.
The organization is rumored to be linked to Salah al-Mutlak, the prominent secular Sunni lawmaker and his party have been barred from participating in the upcoming parliamentary election because of ties to the previous regime.

The organization’s staff included a candidate for Parliament, Wurud al-Qaisi, who was in the building but escaped unharmed. Ms. Qaisi is running with a list of female candidates as part of a secular, cross-sectarian alliance.

The observers link the attack to a surge in assassinations in Baghdad believed to be perpetrated by the notorious “death squads” which had terrorized the Iraqi capital nearly two years ago.

Four people, including a colonel in the Iraqi army, were killed in three separate attacks by armed militants, security forces confirmed on Thursday,the colonel was killed by militant gunfire in the Al-Kasr area of Mosul, around 400 kilometers north of Baghdad on Wednesday night, Four gunmen robbed a jewelry store in the Binoog district of northern Baghdad, killing the owner and another man ,most of the attacks on jewelry stores target Christians and sabia minorities merchants
Iraqi Government workers in Baghdad say the ever-tighter security precautions around their offices are failing to allay fears of further deadly attacks ahead of March elections.
The government has increased roadblocks and security checks in the roughly 15-kilometre central Baghdad zone where most ministries and state offices are located.

But civil servants say the heightened security has done little to reassure them.
Many Iraqi universities are witnessing in the last few months security deterioration as they turn into arenas for political struggles as election date became near which effects the quality of education. Universities, particularly those located in Baghdad province, have become a target of violence, and the security bodies are unable to protect the safety of the students.
Recently, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has ordered the closure of the Mustansariyah University in Baghdad as punishment for the beating up of a professor by students on campus.
Baghdad university is surrounded by large wall with tight security measures as the dean of the university told the students that they are targeted by terror and read to them a threat letter to close the university doors or else.
On the 12 of jan 2010 Iraqi security forces blocked large parts of Baghdad on morning and conducted search operations in some neighborhoods, causing large-scale lockdowns in the capital, The source could not tell the reason behind such sudden and wide-ranging operations, but said they are possibly based on information on bomb attacks in the capital ,people could not go to work or schools ,many heard rumors of failed coup in Baghdad green zone
After an explosions last week in najaf city the city council accused the sons of bath members of organizing the attacks ,the council give 24 hours to all bath families to leave the city ,they later said they can leave in few weeks

The future security in Iraq depends on the election next month ,many people fear a wide spread cleansing in Iraq as one known organization related to media activities in London and with good ties to sectarian powers in Iraq published last week a list of more than 200 names of academics ,journalists and scientist and accuse them of being old believers in Bath and spread articles in the net to attack the Iraqi government and accuses them of being linked to the Iraqis in Syria who are blamed for Baghdad 2009 bloody attacks, bath relation has became a new accusation to remove more than 500 candidate to elections ,making many Iraqi fear that a bath cleansing in the future
Future is not clear and media covers the facts in Iraq ,what will happen is unknown but mostly a strong step in Iraq future for better or worse
References:

1-eart times web site
2-aswat Iraq agency
3-al-zaaman Iraqi newspaper
4-rutiers agency
5-al-baghdadia tv

According to the Baha’i leadership studies, Iraq is home to less than 2,000 Baha’is, spread all across the country. In 1970, Iraq banned the Baha’i Faith, and in 1975 there was a subsequent decision of prohibiting the issuance of identification documents to Baha’is. In 2007 the government abolished the Ministry of Interior’s decision of 1975, but to date issued only about six or seven Baha’i identity papers. Baha’is still have “Muslim” in their IDs since the 1975 decision that forced them to change their documents.

Iraqi law recognized the non-Muslim sects in Iraq in a statement by court No. 6 in 1917. Articles 13, 16 and 17 of the statement contains the provision to register the personal status of Iraqis according to the minority group that he belong to.

Since that date, the courts began to ratify civil marriage contracts of Baha’is, which were performed under the religious law of the Baha’i Faith. This was further strengthened in the Iraqi Constitution, which in 1925 recognized freedom of religion and belief. This provided the Baha’is with the opportunity to complete the establishment of a National Spiritual Assembly and Local Spiritual Assemblies, publicly establish their headquarters in Alhaidar, and to live according to their religious principles, including social involvement and activities. In 1936 the Iraqi Ministry of Interior issued an Official Guide explicitly recognizing the Baha’is as one of the minority groups in Iraq (Arabs and Kurds, and other folks … In Iraq, Muslims, Christians, Israelites and Yazidi, Sabean and a few of the Baha’i and the Magi), and stated again that they are guaranteed liberties by the Constitution. The Baha’is continued to interact in Iraqi social life and enjoy freedom to practice their religious and social practices in harmony with the rest of the society in Iraq.

Following the Baathist coup in 1963, the new leaders have drastically limited the freedoms previously guaranteed to the Iraqi citizens. The new regime began with attempts to prevent Baha’i activity in Iraq in 1967. The suffering of Baha’is began to escalate; Baha’i became subjected to maltreatment and prisons. This culminated in the decision of the Directorate of Civil Status No. 358 24 / 7 / 1975 that stopped allowing to register Baha’is in the records of civil status.

Baha’is used to obtain a certificate of citizenship that stated “Baha’i” in the field of religion up until 1975. Then they were denied registration of marriages in the records of civil status, and denial of Baha’i identity card or a copy of registration for the record. New births were not registered, and thus Baha’is were deprived of the right to have a passports and employment, entrance to universities, and buying and selling homes and property, forcing some of them to change the field of religion to :Muslim”. This is incompatible with the simplest principles of human rights, and not in line with the constitutions in Iraq, which emphasizes the freedom of belief, stating in Article (40): “Iraqis are free to make personal commitments, according to their religions, sects, beliefs or choices, and be regulated by law.”

Is it conceivable that the Iraqi society before eighty year ago was a more tolerant and civilized society than it is now? Where is the democracy and justice our Iraqi leaders promised us? Do not Baha’is deserve the rights given to big players in the political game, or will they have the same fate of other minorities in Iraq like bombings, death and neglect?

References
1-al-sabah Iraqi newspaper
2-iraqi religions encyclopedia
3-bahi in Iraq -Wikipedia

It was another bad year for Iraq’s Christian minority. this is how Sam Dagher
from New York Times describes the conditions of Iraqi Christians

Although they were granted more representation in Parliament under the new election law that was finally approved in early December, they continued to be besieged on many fronts, especially in northern Iraq.

There has been a notable increase in attacks targeting Iraqi Christians, particularly in the northern restive city of Mosul.

Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, used to be a main center of Christianity in Iraq prior to the 2003-U.S. invasion.

Christianity came to Mosul and the adjacent Nineveh Plain in the 1st century A.D. and reached its zenith in the 7th century.

There are probably more monasteries and churches in the city and its suburbs than mosques – but unfortunately most are abandoned today.

A bomb placed close to a church went off on Wednesday, killing one Iraqi Christian and damaging part of the church.

Other churches and a monastery were attacked this month, causing material damage but no casualties.

However, several Iraqi Christian have been killed in the city this month, some of them originally living there and others on business trips.

On Thursday, the Christmas eve, one Iraqi Christian youth was killed as he left his home in al-Tahrir district, according to www.ankawa.com, a social and news website specialized mainly in Iraqi Christian affairs.

“Are these the Christmas presents we get?” Said Fr. Faiz Wadia of the Orthodox Christian church that was attacked last week.

“Is this the way they want to congratulate us on Christmas and the New Year?” Fr. Wadia added.

That year, a wave of attacks against Christians in Mosul left 40 dead and displaced more than 12,000, according to the United Nations. Although many have since returned to Mosul, the attacks against Christians and their churches have continued.At least five Mosul churches have been targeted in the past few weeks.

Late 2008 at least 40 Christians were killed and more than 12,000 forced to flee the city.

Analysts say if the anti-Christian attacks continue, Mosul will soon lose its Christian identity and standing as a center for tolerance and co-existence in the Middle East.
They also suffer for political pressures to act as they are living happily in Iraq ,they did not celebrated Christmas this year cause Iraqi shiaa were mourning the death of Alhussien in Ashora ,the government thanked them for there sacravise but the reality is that most people relived when the chirch said we will not celebrate cause they had not intention to celebrate ,cause they were afraid from been looked as acting happy in ashore ,a new custom in Iraq to force people to join you in sadness even on the expense of there religion
Many Christian are flying Iraq ,Holland and Germany still give them asylum ,Norway and Sweden is asking them to go and live in Kurdistan ,as they prefer to believe Iraqi government propaganda than to read UN reports
Other minorities as azydians and sabia are not much better ,no one mention the 5000 bahai and 150 jewish we had in Iraq of course cause according to Iraqi leaders they do not exist
refrences:

azzaman newspaper
ankawa web sit
www.aina.org

The Arab communities and even non-Arab Islamic had left us a legacy of customs and traditions against the female, and had subsequently generated a series of consequences of the process of discrimination between human beings on the basis of gender, ie, discrimination between women and men because of masculinity and femininity, both in pregnancy, adoption or name. The division went further to roles in jobs and to benefit from civil and political rights.

This is unacceptable morally, legally and civilly and needs to be changed, the change came in the last decade in an international movement all over the world to justify the women’s affairs. The United Nations highlights the issue of women and the great human suffering, and exploitation of women and trade in human organs from poor countries and regions, prejudices, differences in wages between women and men and others.

Till today a requerment for a study on legislation for women’s rights in Iraq still needed to take part , for justice for women in Iraq and the elimination of gender discrimination in the rights, duties and modify the disparity of legal protection in Iraqi legislation in force and to avoid manifestations of violence against women, including so-called crime of murder, or honor killings money honor, which are an indication of a flagrant and serious waste of women’s rights and damage to human and its identity in order to activate the role of women in the future Iraq.

Women have occupied the position of social, economic, political and religious distinct in different times and played an active role in the affairs of life as varied forms of this importance and the role and status of these different times in the early stages of the history of women’s status in the ranking gods worshiped by human beings, and ask them forgiveness, mercy and form of existence as a symbol of the best production and fertility and as such was a close relationship between women and creation. Also associated with the presence of women with fertile land, which feed the people from the industry.

Many texts governing the family and the reservation status and role of women in the Babylonian ancient Iraq was the right of women to divorce her husband and has custody of the children their right to engage in business and are entitled to legal and financial liability separate from those of her husband and has the right to care and maintenance.

Has also established severe penalties on the person who mistreat women or violates the rights of the really hard in the Act. Women also occupied a prominent place in the Covenant of Samothrace, in the Republic of Plato, however, this position were not as well as when the Arabs before Islam, where they found the problem of female infanticide at the time in fear of falling with families during invasions and wars, this was the task of the social values at the time, which is that, not of women Sbaya or prisoners of war, which indicates the weakness of the group, which is the captivity of women from the time of invasions.

Which is, disgraces and degrades the value of the group and because the socio-economic status was based on men’s role in agriculture and war until the advent of Islam, which tried to alleviate the social problems that existed then generally the one who concerns us here is the reference to the loss of pictures of women’s rights in Iraq for the purpose of a summary of recommendations to modify the status of women in Iraqi society.

Iranian troops have occupied an oil well in Iraq. Zhaf Nazhmi, a general of the Iraqi border forces, said on Friday before the press in Baghdad: “Iranian troops keep the source point 4 of the oil field east Missan since yesterday (Thursday) morning reception.” In media was that the Iranians would have hoisted their flag over the field.

Eleven Iranian soldiers Friday raised their country’s flag over the oil well in a border area disputed by Iran and Iraq. They have since withdrawn slightly, giving up control of the well; Iraq has demanded a full withdrawal.

Iraq dismissed the reports. “This message is not true,” said Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Chafadschi on Friday. The disputed oil field on the border had not been stormed. “It is empty, it is abandoned.”

The Operator Group Maysan Oil Company did not take the information has been submitted. Neither the defense nor the Iraqi Oil Ministry had initially reached comments.

The message reinforced in the international financial markets, the dollar, which made up for some of its losses against the euro again. Also, the oil price put easily in the sequence.

Iraq – then under President Saddam Hussein – and Iran led from 1980 to 1988 a devastating war that took the hundreds of thousands on both sides killed. Admittedly, the relationship between the two countries since the fall of Saddam has improved somewhat. However, standing in Iraq, more than 100,000 soldiers in the U.S., the sworn enemy of Iran. Move seen as largely symbolic but a warning to foreign oil players dealing with Iraq.

Although the seizure was largely symbolic, what many Iraqis saw as a weak response from Mr. Maliki could spell trouble for the prime minister in a parliamentary election scheduled for March 7. A Shi’ite Muslim, he has historic ties to Shi’ite majority Iran.
“This is a clear message to the foreign oil companies: You cannot come and exploit Iraqi oil while at the same time your governments are putting pressure on us,” analyst Ghassan al-Attiyyah of the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development said.
The Iranian occupation of the well, which Iraq considers part of its Fakka oilfield in southeast Maysan province, met little apparent resistance from Iraqi forces.

Iran said its troops acted to dismantle a barrier erected recently by Iraqi soldiers. The well, inoperative for decades, is considered small by local standards.

The bigger impact may have been in Baghdad.

Many of Iraq’s top politicians once sought refuge from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime in Iran and since Saddam’s ouster, Tehran has had warmer ties with Baghdad, to the point where many Iraqis accuse it of undue influence.

Many Iraqis note disapprovingly that the Maliki government had a delayed response to the incident and its outcry was muted.

On the other hand, Mr. Maliki has appeared willing to dissociate himself from politicians Iraqis identify with Iran. He has also blasted Iranian ally Syria, blaming it for harbouring militants Iraq holds responsible for major bomb attacks.

“His differences with Syria are in fact a message to Iran,” said Hazim al-Nuaimi, a political science professor at Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University.

As Iraqis increasingly reject outside interference, politicians seen as close to Iran may fare badly in March, leaving Iran a small window to define borders on its own terms.

“Iran knows it has many allies in the current government, and there is no guarantee they will have the same influence in the next one,” Iraqi oil analyst Mahmoud al-Jubouri said.

Refrences:
1- The Globe and Mail
2- Norway post news
3- Iraqi al-zzaman newspaper

- A workshop for 4 days at the Institute for the preparation of teachers in Baghdad from 6-9 December,

- To hold a workshop with the tribal leaders of Basra and Maysan, held in Basra on 22 December.

- Meeting with the Authority staff at the Faculty of Arts in Najaf on 12-3

- Suspension of 82 banner (violence against women an affront to human dignity) on behalf of the Iraqi Women Network, distributed in 13 counties.

- Design and broadcast TV ad over four days in Iraq and the fallopian Cuts in the second week of December.

- An exhibition which represents the silent witness mock wooden forms of women and girls talk about what they suffered from the violence and injustice. The exhibition was part of the Iraqi Women Network Conference which was held on 11-12 December.

- A theatrical presentation on behalf of the bright future, a performances in different places, particularly schools and colleges.
The campgin introduce a series of workshops in several Iraqi governorates to discuss the concepts of of civil society, the state and the clan, the clan and women (polygamy, , honor crimes, early marriage), a look at religious violence and the impact of violence on women, various forms of violence, protection of women in the Iraqi constitution.
Several findings focused on the wrong concepts of integration between custom, religion and the need to clarify erroneous interpretations of religion and change the norms and legacies that lead to delayed growth and development of society
The participents came up with several recommendations for :
• the enactment of Social Security to provide a decent living for all citizens especially women
• the improvement of community services because it reduces the suffering of women
• Activating the positive role of families in the building and the community through establishing security
• the need for cooperation with civil society organizations in raising awareness and communicate the needs of the community to decision makers.
• raise awareness in society, men and women to abide by recourse to the law to ensure everyone’s rights and the reduction of the marriage outside the court and subsequent injustice and loss of rights for women and children.
• reducing the phenomenon of honor killing of shame (or so-called honor crimes) and follow the methods of dialogue and advice, rather than murder, because it leads to abuse and defame the family in addition to the loss of the victim without justification, the amendment of existing laws and prosecute perpetrators of these crimes

Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no longer just one of many environmental and regulatory concerns. As the United Nations Secretary General has said, it is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security, and other dimensions.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. It can be a change in the average weather or a change in the distribution of weather events around an average (for example, greater or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change may be limited to a specific region, or may occur across the whole Earth.

In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, climate change usually refers to changes in modern climate. It may be qualified as anthropogenic climate change, more generally known as global warming.

Factors that can shape climate are climate forcing. These include such processes as variations in solar radiation, deviations in the Earth’s orbit, mountain-building and continental drift, and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. There are a variety of climate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the initial forcing. Some parts of the climate system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond slowly in reaction to climate forcing because of their large mass. Therefore, the climate system can take centuries or longer to fully respond to new external forcing.

Shifting weather patterns, for example, threaten food production through increased unpredictability of precipitation, rising sea levels contaminate coastal freshwater reserves and increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, and a warming atmosphere aids the pole-ward spread of pests and diseases once limited to the tropics.

The news to date is bad and getting worse. Ice-loss from glaciers and ice sheets has continued, leading, for example, to the second straight year with an ice-free passage through Canada’s Arctic islands, and accelerating rates of ice-loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Combined with thermal expansion—warm water occupies more volume than cold—the melting of ice sheets and glaciers around the world is contributing to rates and an ultimate extent of sea-level rise that could far outstrip those anticipated in the most recent global scientific assessment.

There is alarming evidence that important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system, may already have been reached or passed. Ecosystems as diverse as the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic tundra, for example, may be approaching thresholds of dramatic change through warming and drying. Mountain glaciers are in alarming retreat and the downstream effects of reduced water supply in the driest months will have repercussions that transcend generations. Climate feedback systems and environmental cumulative effects are building across Earth systems demonstrating behaviours we cannot anticipate.

The potential for runaway greenhouse warming is real and has never been more present. The most dangerous climate changes may still be avoided if we transform our hydrocarbon based energy systems and if we initiate rational and adequately financed adaptation programmes to forestall disasters and migrations at unprecedented scales. The tools are available, but they must be applied immediately and aggressively.

Human activities that contribute to climate change include in particular the burning of fossil fuels, agriculture and land-use changes like deforestation. These cause emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas responsible for climate change, as well as of other ‘greenhouse’ gases. To bring climate change to a halt, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced significantly.

If things go on pretty much as they have been, scientists’ best guess is that the amount of warming will be about 2.5°F (1.4°C) by the year 2050. The range of uncertainty stretches from almost no change to over 4°F (2.3°C).

The ozone hole is a different problem, Many people confuse the hole in the ozone layer with climate change. However, these two problems are not closely related. The ozone layer protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet light that can cause skin cancer and damage plants and animals. The main cause of the hole in the ozone layer is chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), gases that are used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and industrial applications. While CFCs alone cause warming, their ozone destruction can cause cooling.

When the weather gets warmer, evaporation from both land and sea increases. This can cause drought in areas of the world where the increased evaporation is not compensated for by more precipitation. The extra water vapor in the atmosphere has to fall again as extra precipitation, which can cause flooding other places in the world. This will result of:

Less ice and snow:

Glaciers are shrinking rapidly at present. . In areas that are dependent on melt water from mountain areas, this can cause drought and a lack of drinking water.

More extreme weather incidents:

The warmer climate will most probably cause more heatwaves, more cases of heavy rainfall and also possibly an increase in the number and/or severity of storms.

Rising sea level:

The sea level rises for two reasons. Partly because of the melting ice and snow, and partly because of the thermal expansion of the sea. Thermal expansion takes a long time, but even an increase in temperature of two degrees Celsius is expected, in due time, to cause a rise in the water level of almost a metre.
During this month Copenhagen climate change conference took place so the leading countries in the world can find solution to the climate changes, The193-nation UN conference ended with delegates simply “taking note” of a US-led climate deal that recognised the need to limit temperature rises to 2C. a decision to which is far from the legally binding treaty which some had expected and for which many hoped.

Refrencess:
1-http://www.unep.org/climatechange
2-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
3-BBC world news. climate conferences coverage

After the last explosions in Baghdad on the 8th of December where two cars exploded in Baghdad and killed more than 127 person with about 330 wounded, I did not find any energy to write or comment. I just posted the story on my Facebook, a prayer that God, Allah, or any mighty force up there should give the Iraqi people a break. In fact I was more depressed as many of my friends know I had became a heavy guest on one of the European countries after I received death threats in Baghdad, and as we like to say in Arabic world (guest is a our king for 3 days with all his wishes to be fulfilled, then on day 4 either he leave or explain why he want to stay), and I can tell you my 3 days in Europe has expired a long time ago. In fact, all European countries are feeling sick from people coming to Europe seeking a new life, they feel that we bring a part of our Mideast crisis with us, with our Islamic ideas and way of life. You can see that Islamophobia and xenophobia has became the new trend here and the ban of minarets in Switzerland is an example of that new wave.

I respect the European stand on immigrants, I mean I had been here for some time and see many people really giving horrible examples of abusing the west’s respect of human rights. I respect their beliefs and their fears, but this really will not solve my problem. I am living here on temporary permits that give me few rights and under fear I may lose it any day. My country is a war zone with no man or government accepting to take the blame for it.

The problem with cases as Iraq and Palestine is that we started to grow old, our countries lost its spark. Reporters are not getting new feeds on us, the terror and death and politics in our countries are repeating themselves, making it hard for media to bring new angels and make it hard for people to sympathies with us and harder for us to escape death. Our options are limited ether you shut your mouth and live in your country, walking near the wall (my mother used to say: leave all this political shit and focus on your life, get married and forget about changing anything.) Well I never listened to mom and never got married. Today I watch all this politics, shit burns in my lovely city Baghdad, killing my people and I can hardly do anything, just shut my mouth and send a short prayer of peace on my Facebook page.

I try to keep posting and sharing with the few people who care to see what I have posted. I try to sign another petition for peace, and share latest human rights video, I try to support change in Iran and keep the voices of activists’ in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Jordan and Tunisia, etc, keep their voices being heard. Try to bring new ideas to the people who read my Twitter or Facebook or my blog.

I try to survive. I am not doing great work in it but I try. So maybe one day someone up there in the heaven above decides that the Iraqi people need a break from corruption, sectarian violence and ignorance and could use some human rights, freedom and peace.

Maybe I can go home that day.

Over 900 people on death row in Iraq face imminent execution ,Some of them are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials but that did not stop The Iraqi authorities from planning the executions of more than 900 people on death row who have exhausted their legal appeals and could be put to death at any time, before the date of Iraqi election in 2010
The prisoners, who include 17 women, are said to have had their death sentences ratified by the Presidential Council, the final step before executions are carried out.

Iraq has executed at least 120 prisoners this year and 900 remain on death row, human rights group Amnesty International has said in a statement,The rights watchdog urged Baghdad to stop the executions of all people condemned to death, adding that “some are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials,” according to the statement released late on Friday,”At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq so far this year,” said the London-based organization, “In a country which already has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, the prospect that this statistic may rise significantly is disturbing indeed,” said Philip Luther, deputy director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

Baghdad reintroduced the death penalty in 2004, after a brief moratorium immediately following the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. Those sentenced to death are usually hanged ,According to Amnesty, at least 285 people were sentenced to death in Iraq and 34 executed in 2008. In 2007, at least 199 were sentenced and 33 executed.

government is reportedly trying to present itself as being tough on crime and capable of overcoming the difficult security situation in the country, before the national elections in 2010,Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is an ardent supporter of capital punishment, but President Jalal Talabani opposes its use,Opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to allow the ruling al-Da’wa party to gain political advantage ahead of the elections. They have called on the government to temporarily suspend all executions.

Resources:
1- Amnesty international report of 2009 on Iraq
2- www.fulcoverage.com

For the Arabic video report:

Click here to view the embedded video.

For the English video report:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tensions arose because of the American decision in 2003 which authorized their Kurdish allies to occupy 80 000 km2 of territory bordering the three Northern provinces that they were governing. “80 000 km2, is three times the surface of their three provinces “, highlighted an Iraqi Official in an Arabic newspaper. It is thus hardly surprising that their Arabic neighbors are protesting today. At that time, the Kurds were allied with the Shiites- the main allies of the Americans. It is they who, with the American proconsul Paul Bremer, drafted the federal constitution which has caused Iraq so many difficulties.

How to return the Kurdish Peshmerga to their three Northern provinces? Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has endorsed various ventures in the last months in order to find an answer to the question. He tests his Kurdish neighbors by sending up an Iraqi army brigade here or there, but faces Peshmergas who refuse to give a single square meter of land. The Americans have proposed cooperation between US forces and Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and joint patrols, but it was in vain.

The situation on the ground is getting worse. There are areas of tensions between Arabs and Kurds, which undoubtedly strengthens the position of Al Qaeda which has been more or less expelled from other areas in Iraq. A new theater of potential ethnic violence which Al Qaeda will inevitably try to capitalize on.

Taking advantage of American patronage, the Kurds went a long way to establish their autonomy in 2003. Perhaps too far? They probably knew that, faced with a choice between Bagdad and Erbil, the Americans will probably ultimately choose Iraq. That may be why they started to redefine their relations with their neighbors, particularly Turkey, especially on the PKK subject.

In Bagdad, Nouri al-Maliki has bad relations with the president of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani. He’ll probably need the Kurds however if he wants to hold on to power and the Prime Minister’s post after the general election in January 2010. Thus, in the eyes of the Kurds, Maliki’s room to maneuver is considerably reduced, unless of course he manages to find other coalition partners (such as Iyad Alawi or Salih al-Mutlaq), win a majority and thus continue to rule.

“We’re working very hard to calm the tensions in the North “, says General Lanza. A committee has been formed with senior American military officials, representatives of the KRG and officials from the central government in Bagdad to discuss initiatives and potential solutions. But as times passes, the rift between Arabs and Kurds in the North is growing.

from the NCCI OCTOBER 2009 review published in iraq

The NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq – NCCI – is an independent initiative launched by a group of NGOs who were present in Baghdad in April 2003. At the time of its inception, the 14 members of NCCI intended to establish the basis of a neutral aid coordination highlighting the priorities for intervention and optimizing the responses to the needs of the Iraqi population. More than 5 years later, NCCI has pursued its initial objectives and has developed into a wide forum where NGOs can exchange information regarding humanitarian activities and policy decisions in Iraq. NCCI’s role in Emergency coordination requires NCCI to ensure that basic needs relating to crisis situations are met.

We know that we live today in a very violent world, where death from war and terror is a common feature of our daily life – we see it in our cities, attacking our friends and loved ones, or we may be far away and watched it on TV. We are in some way all linked to it, as our countries’ policies sometime manufacture death in far away places.

Few years ago in my country Iraq we were accused of building weapons of mass destruction, leading to war, changes and the death of millions of Iraqis and displacement of 7 millions. During this war, many people carried weapons and react to violence with violence, we fight US troops, then fought other Iraqi cause the worked with US troops, then we fought each other because we felt like the others want us out, death produced death, God roomed the empty streets with dead people lay for days, peace became a dream, violence produced violence, peaceful people hid scared.

Till we discover a cure, either you hide or stand, and we stood, we went to open clinics in the middle of desert for displace people camps without guns to protect us only our believe in the people will protect those who help them, we marched in 2003, 2004, 2005 in front of green zone asking the mangling council in Iraq for fair constitution with respect to human rights, we went to vote no to the constitution and we keep till today campaigning to change it sectarian soul, to remove articles 140 and 41 and separate religion from state.

We went to college to study in spit of snipers hunting any body enter the college, we went thorough the back door ,in 2007 when US troops surrounded alkarda distract looking for missing soldier kidnapped by almahdy army ,we walked 2-5 kilos every day dragging 20 child so they can study theaters and art and conflict resolution in our summer school , in 2007 peace day we preformed life play in Baghdad streets at night in memory of 400 killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad, in 2009 they tried to kill me for an article I published but I run and continue standing for them as all my brave peace activist in Iraq ,they marched after black Wednesday explosions in Baghdad and ask the government to stop corruption and build safe Iraq.

Today we are fighting through organizing conferences, workshops, exhibits to ask people to elect uncorrupted people for the government, to stop sectarian parties from dividing Iraq into 100 pieces, we post on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, we blog, we shout we network and lobby and I know we will lose the elections cause the corruption has the law, the state and the guns with him, but we had weapons of mass destruction, not the ones Saddam built in CIA fairytales reports, but our faith in freedom, in living in our rich country in peace, we had pens to write, voices to shout, camera to document, we had our networks, and every day we grow in number, we win more people, and people will protect those who help them and this nonviolent movements will overcome all violence in the end, cause they gain power and money and loss people, we are weak but strong, we are unarmed but many, we had faith to change to dream to live and this is our weapons of mass destruction.

Change will happen in Iraq. Activists will win. Freedom will roll.

This is our vision, this is our faith…

This is our dream.

Wamith Alkssab
Co-Founder, Iraqi Streets.

Several political blocs have expressed dissatisfaction with Iraq’s new election law, criticizing various amendments and provoking fears that it could yet be rejected by the Presidency Council, delaying the country’s national elections scheduled for January.

Although external pressures forced a compromise on the Kirkuk question and pushed the bill through parliament, ongoing criticism has led some to suggest that the Presidency Council may now veto the law and send it back to parliament for reworking.

At the heart of the dispute are the status of ‘compensatory’ seats and the plight of Iraqi voters abroad.

During the 2005 election there were 45 compensatory seats, allocated to political parties which did not win parliamentary seats in their electoral districts but secured a large enough percentage of votes nationwide to warrant seats in parliament.

Now, however, the number and concept of these compensatory seats has been altered, threatening the status of smaller political parties.

In the new law the allocated compensatory seats now stands at only five percent of total parliamentary seats, equal to 16 out of the total 323 seats. Out of these 16, eight have been allocated as quota seats for minorities, which means that the actual number of compensatory seats only stands at eight. Furthermore, the votes of refugees abroad will go into the compensatory seats pot, further diluting the value of compensatory seats.

The result is that smaller political parties who see the compensatory system as their only chance of securing parliamentary seats now believe that the odds are stacked against them.

At the same time some political figures have criticized the allocation of such a small number of seats for Iraqi refugees living abroad, numbering as many as two million.

The Sunni deputy president, Tariq al-Hashimi, expressed his dissatisfaction with the “attempt to undermine” the votes of Iraqi refugees abroad, saying that “seats allocated to Iraqi refugees should reflect their real numbers.”

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni parliamentarian, has now demanded the allocation of 30 seats to Iraqi refugees abroad, saying that the current allocation is a violation of the constitution which stipulates that all Iraqis are equal.

The election law has stipulated that the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) shall decide where and how voting will be conducted for refugees abroad.

Meanwhile, the rights of internally displaced people are also being threatened, say critics, by article four of the election law which states that “displaced persons should vote in the city where their ration card was issued.” A large number of displaced people have not transferred their ration cards to their new places of residence, effectively meaning that they will be unable to vote in the election.

Taha Daraa, an MP for the Iraqi United Coalition in Diyala province, has now called for the article to be examined by the federal constitutional court. “Approving the provision related to displaced persons was a tragic thing to happen and an unprecedented and dangerous violation of the constitution,” he said.

At the same time, minority groups have also criticized the new compensatory system saying that it does not grant them enough parliamentary seats. Of the eight seats for minorities, five have been allocated to Christians and one each for Yazidis, the Shabak the Sabian-Mandaeans.

But according to Ameen Farhan Hajjo, the head of the Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress, their one seat does not adequately reflect their population size. With a total population of about half a million people, Hajjo says that the Yazidis should have been granted five seats according to the new law stipulating one seat for every 100,000 people.

“The allocation of only one seat for Yazidis does not fulfil the Yazidi aspirations,” he told Niqash.

Smaller parties and election observers have also expressed opposition to the provision stipulating that surplus votes from winning lists shall be handed down to the next largest list, saying it discriminates against voter intentions.

The Iraqi communist party has called the provision “dangerous” saying it works against the democratic nature of elections. The party has called upon the presidency to contest this provision and to return the bill to parliament for further discussion.

The Tamouz Network, a group of election monitoring NGOs, has also issued a statement condemning this article, saying that it will lead to the manipulation of voter intentions by giving seats to parties they did not vote for.

According to the election law, the Presidency Council, represented by the president and his two deputies, now has a period of 10 days to examine the bill. While observers say that President Jalal Talabani is unlikely to reject the bill, one of his two deputies including al-Hashimi who has already expressed unease with its makeup, could well take this step and throw the country back into political turmoil.

While Arab parties have already formed a number of alliances to participate in the upcoming elections, no Kurdish alliances have yet been formed.

Following the Iraqi parliament’s failure to ratify an election law for the third time – largely because of differences over the fate of Kirkuk – the Kurdistan Regional President Massoud Barzani convened an urgent meeting of Kurdish political parties to stress the importance of a united position on Kirkuk.

After the meeting, which included Kurdish opposition forces, a joint statement was issued stating that elections must be held in Kirkuk on the same day as the rest of the country. They rejected the division of Kirkuk into different electoral zones based on ethnicity and insisted that Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution be implemented.

All the Kurdish parties have now agreed that Kirkuk represents a “red line” which they stand united on and over which they will not compromise.

“We all agreed to have one position regarding the Kirkuk issue,” said Barzani following the meeting.

Alla Talabani, a Kurdish MP in the national parliament, says that Kurds have no friends on the Kirkuk issue and that it is only through a united stand that they will be able to secure their interests.

“Although we have no friends regarding the Kirkuk issue, we are confident that we alone can defend the rights of Kirkuk,” she told Niqash.

During the swearing in of the new government in the Kurdistan Region this week, Barzani warned that “everybody should know that we reject a special case for Kirkuk.” Moreover, he added that “some political parties want to use Kirkuk as an excuse to delay the Iraqi national elections,” an outcome Kurdish parties oppose strongly.

Today as the failure to pass an election law reverberates across the country, the status of Kirkuk has become the dominant theme of the region’s media outlets. All the Kurdish television channels have held special programs on the issue and newspapers editorial repeatedly stress the importance of Kurdish unity on the issue.

A number of popular Kurdish organizations have threatened mass demonstrations if the political parties do not remain united over the fate of Kirkuk.

According to Dr. Sirwan Ahmed, a well-known Kurdish political analyst, the outcome of the Kirkuk question could well determine the fate of the region within a federal Iraq.

“If Kurdish parties lose Kirkuk, it means they have lost the Kurdistan Region,” he said, warning that it would represent the first encroachment of many by Baghdad on Kurdish rights.

Yet, even as people in Kurdistan have been happy to see the Kurdish parties coming together over the Kirkuk issue, there are increasing concerns that Kurdish parties will not form an alliance for January’s national elections, potentially weakening their position in Baghdad. For the moment it appears that Kurdish parties will participate on separate lists.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) headed by Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) headed by Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, are now calling for one joint list to run in the elections. The two parties have called for political forces to join their Kurdistan List, saying that if Kurdish parties do not form one coalition force, the Kurdish position will be weakened in Baghdad.

“Kurdish unity now is more necessary than ever because in the four coming years Iraq will face a political crisis,” said Dr. Barham Saleh of the PUK as he was sworn in as the region’s new Prime Minister.

The Kurdistan coalition’s spokesperson in parliament, Fryad Rwandzi, explained that participating in the elections on different lists will be negative for Kurds by diluting their ability to secure important posts in the next government and their role in political decision-making.

Recently the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Islamic Group did propose an Islamic alliance with the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) but the KIU rejected the idea, saying “our party’s members prefer to run for the election separately without forming an alliance with any party.”

The KIU and the Change list, the region’s two main opposition forces, both believe they have sufficient strength to compete independently and so have decided not to enter into any alliance.

Additionally they say they cannot enter into a coalition with the Kurdistan List as the KDP and PUK monopolize Kurdish powers in Baghdad. They complain that all posts given to Kurds in Baghdad go to PUK and KDP members and that only by competing independently will they be able to secure their own powers.

niqash | Qassim Khidhir Hamad | thu 29 oct 09
http://www.niqash.org/content.php?contentTypeID=75&id=2559&lang=0

Divisions between the four ethnic groups who make up the province has yet again blocked the passage of the law.

Bahaa al-A’raji, the head of parliament’s legal committee, said that “the law was not approved because partisan interests were more important for parliament members than the country and its supreme interests.”

The root of the problem, say observers, is that Arab and Turkmen representatives want to use the old 2004 electoral voting registers, produced before the return of tens of thousands of Kurds to the city. The Kurds meanwhile insist on the use of the latest voting registers which reflect their new demographic strength.

But Arabs and Turkmen say that the Kurdistan Alliance list which controls Kirkuk’s provincial council has illegally resettled thousands of Kurds in the province who were not originally from the area in order to secure an electoral majority.

Saad al-Din Arkeej, a member of the Iraqi parliament and the head of the Turkmen Front said in a press conference that the “Turkmen in Iraq in general and in Kirkuk in particular will not legitimize an election process whose result are predetermined. They will not permit attempts which will lead to the loss of the city.”

The Kurdistan Alliance bloc is now seeking the adoption of a law which stipulates that Kirkuk is one electoral district similar to all other Iraqi provinces. Arabs and Turkmen want Kirkuk to be divided into four electoral districts which would allow the city’s four ethnicities to be represented in parliament and would prevent Kurdish domination.

Following parliament’s failure to ratify the law, the issue has now been handed over to the National Political Council, composing the President and his deputies, the president of parliament and the Prime Minister, in a bid to push the process forward.

Fouad Massoum, head of the Kurdistan Alliance bloc, expressed optimism that “the political blocs will be able to reach consensus to resolve outstanding issues in the election law, especially those related to Kirkuk.”

Even so, observers fear that the delay may lead to the postponement of January’s elections, or to the adoption of the old law – the closed list system passed in 2005 – which for most political blocs is unacceptable.

Iyad al-Samarae, the parliament speaker and a member of the Political Council, commented that “any delay in reaching an agreement on the election law means a loss to all parties.” However, he stressed that “the conflict will not have any impact on the date of the elections.”

Kurds say that political opponents are exploiting the Kirkuk issue in order to push back elections or force the close-list system back into play.

“The issue of considering Kirkuk a special area and dividing it into four districts has been used as a justification by some parties who are demanding the adoption of the open list system to postpone elections and ultimately leading to the adoption of the closed list system,” said Tania Talat, a female parliamentarian for the Kurdistan Alliance.

Ad Melkert, the new United Nations envoy to Iraq, has called on parties to reach an agreement, saying that “time is critical and further delays in ratifying the amendment clarifications and the legal framework can adversely affect both the current electoral timeline and ultimately the credibility of the electoral process.”

Melkert called on lawmakers to work quickly to make sure necessary legislation is in place for the January elections and is said to have urged Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to pressure Shia forces and parliamentary blocs to reach an agreement.

In an attempt to reach a solution regarding the Kirkuk issue, parliament is now examining a proposal submitted by UNAMI which would give Kurds a simple majority and lesser shares to Arabs, Turkmen and Christians.

However, this proposal is not acceptable to Kurdish parliamentarians because they say that “if seats are allocated to minorities in Kirkuk, why shouldn’t Kurds be granted similar shares in other provinces where there are Kurdish minorities.”

Muhammad Khalil, a parliamentarian for the Kurdistan Alliance, said that his bloc will “demand that Baghdad, Ninawa, Diyala and Salahuddin be considered special areas if Kirkuk is.”

from niqash http://www.niqash.org/content.php?contentTypeID=75&id=2557&lang=0