British To Hand Over Basra To Iraqis: Vigilante Violence Against Women Mounts
One one hand:
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that Basra, the last Iraqi province under British control, will be handed back to Iraqi control within two weeks. 4,500 British troops are stationed there.
Mr Brown admitted that while not every difficulty had been overcome, great progress had been made. Government officials said that there had been a 90 per cent drop in violence in Basra since September, when troops withdrew from Basra Palace to the airport. However, MPs on the Commons Defence Select Committee have attributed this to the influence of Iranian-backed Shia militias and criminal gangs. (Courtesy: The Times)
On the other hand: 
Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.
Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.
"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
"Those who are behind these atrocities are organized gangs who work under cover of religion, pretending to spread the instructions of Islam, but they are far from this religion," Khalaf said.
(Courtesy: AP)
If 40 women have been murdered in the past year under British control of the region, will the women of Basra feel safer in the hands of the Iraqis? I wouldn't bet on it.
Murdering women in the name of religion is not new, but it is getting very old. And the British and US government's and even our own tacit support even older.
Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen
