Statement by a group of Diaspora Iraqi writers, journalists and activists in support of the Iraqi parties rejecting the election fraud

We, the Iraqi writers, journalists and activists listed below, strongly believe that peace and security in our country can only be guaranteed through the democratic frameworks and that free and fair elections are the only means to express our people’s will and representation in government. We equally strongly condemn the massacres and atrocities and perpetuated against our people under the pretext of preparing for election and implementing democracy, with the “Interim Government” acting as a cover for these daily war crimes.

1. We fully support the position of the patriotic groups and parties that met on the 17th November 2004 at Umul Qura Mosque in Baghdad, and their decisions to boycott the elections that the occupation forces and their local stooges intend to carry out. We believe their aim is to falsify the will of the people and to legitimise perpetual occupation

2. We demand that the “Interim Government”, if it really wants fair election, cease repression, murder and arrest of patriots who demand the end of occupation, allow free expression and release all those arrested.

3. We demand that the Interim Government cease its covering-up for the horrendous crimes of the occupation forces and stop representing the continued use of tanks and gunship in the country as a democratic necessity.

4. We ask for juridical commissions with integrity to be formed from local experts of all persuasions, including from the armed and peaceful resistance forces, to formulate a new administrative law to replace the one imposed by the occupation for its own purposes and which sidelined the interests of our people. We also call for the formation of local commissions from persons of known integrity of different persuasions to supervise the elections, and for Arab, Islamic and International participation independent of the US occupation in a commission to oversee the process.

We call on our people to be vigilant, to escalate the protest demonstrations and petitions, to appeal to the conscience of the international public opinion, and to uphold the boycott of the fraudulent elections until fairness is guaranteed. (106 signatories as of 26 November 2004 on thawabit.com.

Notes

1. The statement was posted by Dr Musa Al-Hussaini, the coordinator of the Protest Movement Against the Occupations and Fraudulent Elections, based in London. Email: mzalhussaini@btinternet.com. The two Arabic websites that noted for additional signatories of Iraqis only to the list are: inf@thawabit.com and resist@iraqpatrol.com
Dr Hussaini is a retired army officer in mid-fifties, born in Samawa in Southern Iraq, one of the leaders of the Arab Democratic Nationalist Party. He had been imprisoned by the Saddam regime, and in the late 90s a regular commentator on the Iraqi scene in the international Al-Quds Newspaper. His latest writings, some of which collected in book form, focus on analysis of the religious authorities.

2. This first list of 106 signatories are primarily of academics, writers and activists in the US, UK, other EU countries and the Arab world. It contains 24 women, 8 ex-army officers, 3 religious scholars, several activist with listed affiliation to two communist groups, and others listing affiliation to nationalist and Islamic groups. Dr Hussaini noted that this list has a similar spectrum (Muslim Shi’a and Sunna, Christian, Arabs, kurds and Turkumen etc) as the Umul Qura list of 47 groups it alludes to in the first paragraph. ( MA-28 Nov 2004)


Courtesy of Dirk Adriaensens


:: Article nr. 7625 sent on 28-nov-2004 19:33 ECT