The
Rape Of Sabrine
By Baghdad Burning
26 February, 2007
Riverbend Blog
It
takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess
it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves
me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.
As I write this, Oprah is
on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans
how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of
American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably
do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes
and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera
telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped
her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking
as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t
talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.
She might just be the bravest
Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security
forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman
who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing
her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will
call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute-
shame on you in advance.
I wonder what excuse they
used when they took her. It’s most likely she’s one of the
thousands of people they round up under the general headline of ‘terrorist
suspect’. She might have been one of those subtitles you read
on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, “13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security
forces.” The men who raped her are those same security forces
Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained.
It’s a chapter right out of the book that documents American occupation
in Iraq: the chapter that will tell the story of 14-year-old Abeer who
was raped, killed and burned with her little sister and parents.
They abducted her from her
house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn’t
a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained
by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now
telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or
reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.
“I told him, ‘I don’t have anything [I did not do
anything].’ He said, 'You don’t have anything?’ One
of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what
he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third
one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one
of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came
and said, 'Are you finished? We also want our turn.' So they answered,
‘No, an American committee came.’ They took me to the judge.
Anchorwoman: Sabrine Al Janabi said that one of the security forces
videotaped/photographed her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone
about the rape. Another officer raped her after she saw the investigative
judge.
Sabrine continuing:
“One of them, he said…
I told him, ‘Please- by your father and mother- let me go.’
He said, ‘No, no- by my mother’s soul I’ll let you
go- but on one condition, you give me one single thing.’ I said,
‘What?’ He said, ‘[I want] to rape you.’ I told
him, ‘No- I can’t.’ So he took me to a room with a
weapon… It had a weapon, a Klashnikov, a small bed [Unclear],
he sat me on it. So [the officer came] and told him, ‘Leave her
to me.’ I swore to him on the Quran, I told him, ‘By the
light of the Prophet I don’t do such things…’ He said,
‘You don’t do such things?’ I said, ‘Yes’.
[Crying] He picked up a black
hose, like a pipe. He hit me on the thigh. [Crying] I told him, ‘What
do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you rape me? But I can’t…
I’m not one of those ***** [Prostitutes] I don’t do such
things.’ So he said to me, ‘We take what we want and what
we don’t want we kill. That’s that.’ [Sobbing] I can’t
anymore… please, I can’t finish.”
I look at this woman and
I can’t feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that
looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They’ll
feel pity and maybe some anger, but she’s one of us. She’s
not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort
of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk
tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There
was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone.
We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had
a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren’t they?
That is gone too.
She’s just one of tens, possibly hundreds, of Iraqi women who
are violated in their own homes and in Iraqi prisons. She looks like
cousins I have. She looks like friends. She looks like a neighbor I
sometimes used to pause to gossip with in the street. Every Iraqi who
looks at her will see a cousin, a friend, a sister, a mother, an aunt…
Humanitarian organizations
are warning that three Iraqi women are to be executed next month. The
women are Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad. They are
being accused of 'terrorism', i.e. having ties to the Iraqi resistance.
It could mean they are relatives of people suspected of being in the
resistance. Or it could mean they were simply in the wrong place at
the wrong time. One of them gave birth in the prison. I wonder what
kind of torture they've endured. Let no one say Iraqi women didn't get
at least SOME equality under the American occupation- we are now equally
as likely to get executed.
And yet, as the situation
continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq,
and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating
on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing?
Is it better or worse.
Let me clear it up for any
moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You
lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers
of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family
whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded
Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities
behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost
when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to
power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You
lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment.
You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than
3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least,
made it worthwhile.
Maliki's Reaction...
As expected, Al Maliki is
claiming the rape allegations are all lies. Apparently, his people simply
asked the officers if they raped Sabrine Al Janabi and they said no.
I'm so glad that's been cleared up.
"Meanwhile, Prime Minister
Nouri al-Makiki moved quickly to try to defuse a scandal after a Sunni
woman said she was raped by three officers of the Shiite-dominated police.
The government's response
— siding with the officers and trying to discredit the allegations
— threatened to bring even more backlash.
A statement by al-Makiki's
office accused "certain parties" — presumably Sunni
politicians — of fabricating the claims in an attempt to undermine
security forces during the ongoing Baghdad security operation, which
began last week.
The statement was issued only hours after al-Maliki ordered an investigation
into the case Monday night.
The 20-year-old married woman
said she was assaulted after police commandos took her into custody
Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, accusing her of
helping insurgents. She said she was taken to a police garrison and
raped.
"It has been shown after
medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual
attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants
against her issued by security agencies," the government statement
said, without giving details.
"After the allegations
have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the
officers accused be rewarded," it said without elaborating."
I hate the media and I hate
the Iraqi government for turning this atrocity into another Sunni-Shia
debacle- like it matters whether Sabrine is Sunni or Shia or Arab or
Kurd (the Al Janabi tribe is composed of both Sunnis and Shia). Maliki
did not only turn the woman into a liar, he is rewarding the officers
she accused. It's outrageous and maddening.
No Iraqi woman under the
circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim
she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being
shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of
retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame
of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and
her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story,
they are risking their lives.
No one would lie about something
like this simply to undermine the Baghdad security operation. That can
be done simply by calculating the dozens of dead this last week. Or
by writing about the mass detentions of innocents, or how people are
once again burying their valuables so that Iraqi and American troops
don't steal them.
It was less than 14 hours
between Sabrine's claims and Maliki's rewarding the people she accused.
In 14 hours, Maliki not only established their innocence, but turned
them into his own personal heroes. I wonder if Maliki would entrust
the safety his own wife and daughter to these men.
This is meant to discourage
other prisoners, especially women, from coming forward and making claims
against Iraqi and American forces. Maliki is the stupidest man alive
(well, after Bush of course…) if he believes his arrogance and
callous handling of the situation will work to dismiss it from the minds
of Iraqis. By doing what he is doing, he's making it more clear than
ever that under his rule, under his government, vigilante justice is
the only way to go. Why leave it to the security forces and police?
Simply hire a militia or gang to get revenge. If he doesn't get some
justice for her, her tribe will be forced to... And the Janabat (the
Al Janabis) are a force to be reckoned with.
Maliki could at least pretend
the rape of a young Iraqi woman is still an outrage in todays Iraq...