Category — Media Highlights

Direct Aid Iraq recently received this communication, which was circulated in Iraq during the week of September 11. It is an expression of support for a recent mobilization that took place in Baghdad, calling for an end to political violence. A reminder of all that continues to happen in Iraq, below the deafening silence of the media.

STATEMENT BY THE IRAQI NONVIOLENCE GROUP

on the initiative of Ash Wednesday IN BAGHDAD

gathering of civil society organizations

For circulation
Nonviolence Group in Iraq September 9, 2009

Laonf, the Iraqi nonviolence group, announces its support for the initiative led by a group of Iraqi civil society organizations in Baghdad, that come together and rally in the city asking everybody to take into account the interests of citizens and not expose more Iraqis to violence. No more victims for political conflicts, and parties that only aim at reaching more power!

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Historian and political analyst Reidar Visser begins his recent analysis of the initial results of the Iraqi elections with these words:

The provisional results of the Iraqi local elections, released today, can be summarised in three main points as far as the areas from Baghdad and southwards are concerned: Maliki and his Daawa party are big winners everywhere and particularly so in the big cities of Basra and Baghdad; the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) has been decimated across the country; fragmentation rather than the emergence of a clear secular “third way” is mostly the rule, with the exception of a respectable 9% for Iraqiyya in Baghdad and a couple of local secular successes (including Karbala).

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• Members of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council were moving freely among polling centers today, and in the streets their representatives gave lots of money to people to vote.

• Many people who have a right to vote were prevented from voting because their names were not on the lists at the polling centers they were told to use [Read more →]

This morning starting at 7:00 a.m. in Iraq, Provincial election centers across Iraq opened their doors to fifteen million voters. No movement was be permitted between governorates. Airports and national borders were closed, too.

Here are some reflections, collected in the run-up to the election by one Iraqi, speaking and thinking with other Iraqis. Below, I’d like to share a few different aspects of the election process: facts, stories, background, and views of several Iraqis, including my own. [Read more →]