Al Mada reports that Saturday in Falluja, women demonstrated to demand an investigation into the treatment of women in Iraqi prisons and detention centers. If you count on US press outlets, you won't learn of that protest or even why it took place. But, in reality, this is an issue that has been building for several weeks now.
November 27th, All Iraq News reported that the Women, Family and Children's Committee was calling for the Ministry of Justice to make prisons and detention centers open to legislative committees so they can see what the conditions are. All Iraq News also noted MP Safia al-Suhail is calling on the Ministry of Women to focus on eliminating violence against women in prison. November 29th, Alsumaria reported that Iraqiya MP Hamid al-Mutlaq accused security forces of raping and torturing women prison and he traces the culture back to the torture of Iraqis by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison.
November 30th, Al Mada reported that a fight broke out in the halls of Parliament between State of Law (Nouri al-Maliki's political slate) and Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi) and that it was over the issue of what is happening to Iraqi women in prisons and detention centers as well as an allegation that State of Law had attempted to bury the report and refusing to allow Parliament's Committee on Women to issue the report on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th). Dar Addustour added that the Committee report is said to have found that women are being arrested without judicial warrants and that, while in prison, women are being tortured to force confessions against their husbands.
Saturday, December 1st, Nouri gave a speech (that has since been called out by many including Moqtada al-Sadr, Jalal Talabani, Massoud Barzani and Ayad Allawi) in which he threatened to arrest those members of Parliament who had discussed the violence against women in Iraqi prisons and detention centers.
The Ministry of the Interior is over prisons. Who is over the Ministry of Interior?
If Nouri had followed the Constitution, it would be the Minister of the Interior. However, Nouri refused to ever nominate anyone to the post. So he is in the one in charge of the ministry. He has an acting minister who does what he is told or loses his job. (If the 'acting' minister had been nominated and Parliament had approved him, Nouri wouldn't be able to remove him.) So the criticism -- and this is why State of Law resorted to fists with Iraqiya -- really stings Nouri.
Rather than address the problem, he prefers to attack the people who raise it. And that's why Iraqi women took to the streets of Falluja.
The Ministry of the Interior denies the charges. Who's in charge of that Ministry? That's right Nouri al-Maliki. Because he refused to nominate anyone to head it.
