IS sex slavery pushes Iraq victims to suicide

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2014
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Old guard victory dismays Tunisia revolutionaries
TUNIS: Tunisia’s presidential vote has been
hailed as a landmark, but some veterans of the
2011 revolution fear the victory of an 88-yearold from the old guard will bring a return to
repression. For his opponents, Beji Caid
Essebsi’s win in Sunday’s run-off against incumbent Moncef Marzouki soured what was seen
as the culmination of the transition to democracy in the birthplace of the Arab Spring. The
result “reverses the course of history,” said Samir
Ben Amor, a lawyer and member of the executive committee of Marzouki’s Congress for the
Republic party.
Essebsi’s opponents have accused him of
seeking a return to the era of toppled autocrat
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who clung to power for
23 years, combining authoritarian rule with a
degree of prosperity and stability for his people.
Marzouki, a dissident who lived in exile in
France for many years, presented himself as the
guarantor of freedoms and defender of the
revolt that ousted Ben Ali in Jan 2011.
During campaigning, he repeatedly warned
against the danger of electing Essebsi, an antiIslamist lawyer who held key posts under Habib
Bourguiba, the father of Tunisian independence,
as well as Ben Ali. Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party
also includes many members of Ben Ali’s old
party. “It’s really disappointing,” Nejd Ben Hamza,
a 34-year-old engineer, said of the presidential
vote, lamenting the “short memory” of Tunisians.
“Wasn’t Essebsi interior minister under
Bourguiba? Didn’t he support Ben Ali? Is the
crowning moment of the youth revolution, four
years later, the election of an 88-year-old?” he
said. “Tunisians have made sacrifices so that
finally one of the old guard is going to lead the
country,” said Ben Hamza, alluding to the roughly 300 people killed during the Dec 2010-Jan
2011 revolution. Essebsi sought to allay such
concerns on Monday, saying he was in favour of
“completely turning the page on the past”. He
has accused Marzouki of representing the
Islamists, whom he says have “ruined” the country since the revolution, and many voters
appeared to be seeking a return to stability after
a sometimes chaotic transition. Jihadists have
claimed the 2013 murders of two secular politicians that had threatened to derail Tunisia’s
post-Arab Spring transition until a compromise
government was formed in January this year.
Fears for Liberties
The victory of Essebsi, who won 55.68 per-
cent of votes in the second round, has left
Marzouki supporters bracing for a reversal of
post-revolution freedoms. “I really fear for our
liberties, especially as the same political party
will have such overarching powers,” said Ali
Troudi, a 39-year-old teacher. Essebsi’s Nidaa
Tounes won landmark legislative elections in
October and is set to form the next government.
“Essebsi talks about counter-terrorism and the
prestige of the state,” said Troudi. “I’m afraid of a
return to repressive practices in their name.” He
said he was harassed under Ben Ali for going to
the mosque for dawn prayers, making him a target for the old regime which repressed Islamists.
Such fears have triggered clashes between
police and Marzouki supporters since the second round vote, particularly in Gabes and
Tataouine in the south. Troudi said that while he
did not share Marzouki’s ideology, the fact that
this “democrat to the core has defended my
freedom made him the right person for the next
phase, the only one able to bring everyone
together whatever their cultural, political or
even religious differences.”
Supporters of the outgoing president fear
that Tunisia’s media will be largely deferential to
the new leadership, as they were to Ben Ali. “The
media won’t be tough on the new president
and his party. On the contrary, they will be complicit and that makes me seriously worried
about freedoms,” said Ben Amor, who thinks the
influence of the old guard on the media sector
“is one of the reasons for Essebsi’s victory.”
Throughout his three years as president,
Marzouki maintained tense relations with the
press. —AFP
Algerian army kills jihadist
behind Frenchman’s murder
Gouri’s Jund Al-Khilafa backed Islamic State
ALGIERS: The Algerian army said yesterday it
had killed the head of a militant group that
beheaded a French tourist after it had pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State group. The body
of Abdelmalek Gouri, who claimed responsibility for the beheading of Frenchman Herve
Gourdel in September, was identified after an
operation in the town of Isser “that allowed us
to eliminate three terrorists”, the army said. An
operation lasting three months had seen 3,000
Algerian troops mobilised to catch Gourdel’s
killers.
The confirmation of Gouri’s death came
after the Nahar private television network said
soldiers had killed him and two other militants
late on Monday in Isser, about 60 km east of
Algiers. Jund al-Khilafa, or “Soldiers of the
Caliphate”, beheaded Gourdel on September
24 in a gruesome video posted online after
France rejected the group’s demand to halt
anti-IS air strikes in Iraq. On Saturday, the army
said it killed three other Islamist gunmen in a
mountainous area near Sidi Daoud, and that
one of them was a “dangerous criminal” wanted since 1995. Soldiers also seized a large
quantity of guns, ammunition and explosives
during the operation.
On Dec 11, Justice Minister Tayeb Louh
announced that soldiers had killed two Jund AlKhilafa members implicated in Gourdel’s murder. An Algerian court has launched legal proceedings against 15 people, including Gouri,
suspected of participating in the beheading.
Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountain guide, was
kidnapped in September while hiking in a
national park that was once a draw for tourists
but became a sanctuary for Islamists.
Father Identifies Body
He was later decapitated by Jund al-Khilafa,
which was formed at the end of August after
splintering from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb and pledging allegiance to IS. His
killing followed calls by IS for Muslims to kill
Westerners whose nations have joined a campaign to battle the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
The defence ministry said in a statement it had
received information that led to forces pursuing “a dangerous terrorist group travelling in a
vehicle”, before killing Gouri and two others. A
source familiar with the operation told AFP that
the bodies of three suspected militants were
taken to a local hospital, where Gouri’s death
was confirmed by his father early yesterday.
Violence involving Islamists has fallen considerably since the 1990s civil war, but groups
linked to AQIM continue to launch attacks in
the northeast, mostly on security forces. Gouri,
alias Khaled Abou Souleimane, was the former
right-hand man of AQIM leader Abdelmalek
Droukdel, and is suspected of helping to organise suicide attacks on the government palace
and against a UN contingent in Algiers in 2007.
He is also thought to have masterminded an
April attack that k illed 11 soldiers in
Iboudrarene, the same region where Gourdel
was kidnapped.
The town of Isser in the Kabylie area is home
to a large officer training school that was targeted in a 2008 suicide attack that killed
dozens. Gourdel’s body has yet to be found,
despite a widespread search by the army which
has already found a Jund al-Khilafa hideout and
identified the location where a video was
filmed in August showing the group pledge
fealty to IS. Another two “dangerous terrorists”
were killed on Tuesday in Akerrou, 120 km
southeast of Algiers, the army said. —AFP
MAQLUBA, Iraq: In this file photo taken Oct 8, 2014, a 15-year-old Yazidi girl captured by the Islamic State group and forcibly married to a militant in Syria sits on the floor of a one-room house in a hamlet near the Kurdish city of Dahuk after escaping. —AP
IS sex slavery pushes
Iraq victims to suicide
BAGHDAD: Women and girls from Iraq’s Yazidi
religious minority have told rights activists
they were beaten and forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State jihadist group, driving
some to suicide. IS militants have overrun
swathes of Iraq since June, declared a crossborder caliphate also encompassing parts of
neighbouring Syria and carried out a litany of
abuses in both countries. The group has targeted Yazidis and other minorities in northern
Iraq in a campaign that rights group Amnesty
International said in a report yesterday
amounted to ethnic cleansing, murdering
civilians and enslaving others for a fate that
some captives consider worse than death.
It said hundreds and possibly thousands of
Yazidi women and girls had been forced to
marry, sold or given to IS fighters or supporters. “Many of those held as sexual slaves are
children - girls aged 14, 15 or even younger,”
said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis
response adviser, who interviewed dozens of
former captives. A 19-year-old named Jilan
committed suicide out of fear she would be
raped, according to the Amnesty report entitled “Escape from Hell: Torture and Sexual
Slavery in Islamic State Captivity in Iraq”.
“One day we were given clothes that
looked like dance costumes and were told to
bathe and wear those clothes. Jilan killed herself in the bathroom,” said a girl who was held
with her but later escaped. “She cut her wrists
and hanged herself. She was very beautiful; I
think she knew she was going to be taken
away by a man and that is why she killed herself.” Another former captive told the rights
group that she and her sister tried to kill
themselves to escape forced marriage, but
were stopped from doing so. “The man who
was holding us said that either we marry him
and his brother or he would sell us,” said Wafa,
27. “At night we tried to strangle ourselves
with our scarves. We tied the scarves around
our necks and pulled away from each other as
hard as we could, until I fainted,” she said, but
two other captives stopped them.
Sixteen-year-old Randa was abducted with
her family, then beaten and raped by a man
twice her age. Her male relatives were killed.
The man “took me as his wife by force. I told
him I did not want to and tried to resist but he
beat me. My nose was bleeding, I could not
do anything to stop him,” Randa said. “It is so
painful what they did to me and to my family,”
she said.
IS Boasts of Abuse
Amnesty said that many of the perpetrators were IS fighters, but might also include
supporters of the group. Some of the escaped
victims said they were kept in family homes
with wives, children, parents and siblings of
the rapists. IS has boasted in its propaganda
magazine “Dabiq” of the horrors it has inflicted. In an article entitled “The revival of slavery
before the hour”, Dabiq argues that by enslaving people it claims hold deviant religious
beliefs, IS has restored an aspect of Islamic
sharia law.
“After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the
sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic
State who participated in the Sinjar operations,” the article said, referring to the area
where the Yazidis were seized. The abductions
and rapes have drawn widespread international condemnation. US Secretary of State
John Kerry has denounced the enslavement
of women and girls by IS as “abhorrent”.
The abuse causes long-term damage even
to those who manage to escape. “The physical and psychological toll of the horrifying
sexual violence these women have endured
is catastrophic,” Rovera said. “Many of them
have been tortured and treated as chattel.
Even those who have managed to escape
remain deeply traumatised.” One man said
that he fears his wife, who escaped captivity,
may commit suicide, and makes sure someone is with her at all times. “My wife has panic attacks and can’t sleep. I can’t leave her
alone because I’m afraid for her safety,” he
said. —AFP
BENGHAZI: Members of the Libyan army stand on a tank as heavy black
smoke rises from the city’s port in the background after a fire broke out at a
car tyre disposal plant during clashes against Islamist gunmen in this eastern Libyan city yesterday. —AFP
UN warns of war crimes
as hundreds die in Libya
GENEVA: Recent fighting in Libya has killed
hundreds of civilians and forced hundreds of
thousands to flee their homes, the UN said
yesterday, demanding justice for serious
rights violations and possible “war crimes”. In
a joint report, the UN human rights office
and the UN Support Mission in Libya
(UNSMIL) warned of surging violence across
the country since May and widespread
human rights violations, including abductions of civilians, torture and executions.
“Violations are continuing with impunity.
There has been no effort to stop them,”
Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the
UN human rights agency, told reporters in
Geneva.
She warned that many of the abuses
being committed across Libya “may amount
to war crimes”. Three years after dictator
Moamer Kadhafi was toppled and killed in a
NATO-backed revolt, Libya is awash with
weapons and powerful militias, and run by
rival governments and parliaments.
Yesterday’s report pointed to an escalation
in fighting since mid-October in Benghazi,
where forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar
have been battling Islamist militiamen who
have taken control of much of Libya’s second city.
Some 450 people were killed there in the
two months leading up to mid-December,
and some 90,000 people had fled, including
more than 9,000 seeking shelter in schools,
unfinished buildings and open spaces like
parking lots, the report said. Clashes in
Benghazi on Monday meanwhile killed
another 16 people and wounded dozens,
security sources and medics said.
Humanitarian Crisis
In the western Warshafana area, fighting
between rival armed groups had killed some
100 people and injured 500 others between
mid-August and mid-October, the report
found. It warned of “a humanitarian crisis”
with at least 120,000 people displaced in the
area facing “severe shortages of food and
medical supplies”. Fighting in the neighbouring Nafusa mountains had also left a
reported 170 people dead, and displaced
around 5,700 families, it said.
People displaced by the fighting had told
UNSMIL that hundreds of houses, farms and
businesses had been looted, shelled, burned
down, or destroyed by bulldozers. In the
capital Tripoli the humanitarian situation
had improved since late August, but
activists, journalists and public figures continued to be abducted and threatened, the
report found. “One prominent human rights
defender received text messages from
armed groups warning him to stop his advocacy work or else his children would be
abducted and killed,” it said.
Several journalists had been killed,
including the October 5 killing of al-Tayeb
Isa, the founder of Tuareg Tumsat television,
whose body was found riddled with bullets
and his car set on fire. The report painted a
horrifying picture of widespread abductions,
torture and abuse, as well as reports of summary executions, including beheadings. A
father and son detained at a checkpoint in
al-Maya said they had been severely beaten
before their captors poured petrol over
them and threatened to burn them alive.
In a statement, UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein cautioned commanders and high-ranking officials that they were “criminally liable under
international law” for any human rights
abuses they commit or order. They could
also be held accountable if they “fail to take
reasonable and necessary measures to prevent or punish” war crimes or human rights
violations taking place, he said. —AFP
Egypt satirist who
mocked army fined
CAIRO: A prominent Egyptian satirist Fattah Al-Sisi. The private channel said
has been fined millions of dollars over a at the time that Youssef had “violated
dispute with a television channel which the editorial policies” of the channel.
Youssef terminated his contract with
suspended his show after it lampooned
military leaders, officials said yesterday. the channel after it refused to resume
Bassem Youssef, often compared to US broadcasts of the show, a source close
to Al-Bernameg told AFP. In
satirist Jon Stewart, moved
Feb 2014, he began airing
Al-Bernameg
( The
the show on Dubai-based
Program) to Saudi-owned
MBC but suspended it in
channel MBC last year after
June because of what he
it was pulled by the private
described as “enormous”
Egyptian broadcaster CBC.
pressure. The doc torThe Cairo Regional Centre
turned-satirist plans to
for
I nternational
appeal the arbitration
Commercial Arbitration
body ’s ruling, the Alfined Youssef and his comBernameg source said. “I
pany, Q -Soft, 50 million
have been forced into a
Egyptian pounds ($6.5 milcommercial arbitration conlion) each for “CBC’s finanBassem Youssef
flict, that I am not part of,
cial and literary losses,” CBC
regarding CBC ’s suspension of the
owner Mohamed al-Amin told AFP.
The arbitration body said the weekly show,” Youssef wrote on Twitter.
The show ’s suspension triggered
show was not “purposeful and constructive” but a platform for “smearing the concerns about media freedoms in
country’s political direction”. It said that Egypt amid a brutal crackdown overif Youssef ’s company failed to pay its seen by Sisi on supporters of Islamist
part of the fine then he would have to president Mohamed Morsi, whom he
shoulder it all himself. CBC suspended ousted in July last year. Youssef became
Al-Bernameg in November 2013 after a household name known for witty
an episode in which the satirist poked remarks lampooning public figures
fun at military leaders including then including Morsi, the countr y ’s first
army chief and now President Abdel freely elected president. —AFP

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