Alert - Open Letter to UK's Stop the War

London, Friday, 5 January 2007

office@stopwar.org.uk

Dear Lindsey German
National Convenor of Stop the War

Dear Andrew Murray
National Chair of Stop the War

As you certainly know the sectarian lynching of two codefendants of the assassinated President of Iraq Saddam Hussein has been postponed "due to international pressure".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “fully endorses the call made today by (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) Louise Arbour for restraint by the government of Iraq in the execution of the death sentences imposed by the Iraqi high tribunal."

There is not much time left. Baha al-Araji, an influential Shiite lawmaker from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr`s parliamentary bloc, said: "I am sure it will be done on Sunday."

Juan Cole reported:

A Ministry of Interior official admitted to Reuters on Wednesday that Saddam's execution was carried out by militiamen rather than by IM security guards, as planned. It is alleged that militiamen infiltrated the guards. That is, the earlier Sunni charges that Saddam was handed over to the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr for execution were more or less correct. The Sunni-owned al-Zaman is having a field day with this. Even the noose that hanged Saddam has ended up in the possession of Muqtada al-Sadr.

The barbaric assassination of Saddam Hussein has been causing protests and violence in many Middle East and other Islamic countries where people see this lynching as the umpteenth demonstration of racist colonialism from the United States and United Kingdom

Raghida Dergham, columnist and senior diplomatic correspondent for the London-based Al Hayat, wrote:

The US military's decision to turn Saddam over to the neo-executioners, who chanted slogans hailing the Muqtada al-Sadr militia, led to the resurfacing of questions on the reason behind allowing this series of US mistakes in Iraq to have been committed, and whether they truly were mere mistakes. (...)

There are those who are convinced that the pillars of the Bush administration still believe that the US should forge an alliance with Iran, the world's largest Shiite nation, and with the Shiites in general, who are a minority in the Islamic World, simply because al-Qaeda and its offshoots are Sunnis.

These also believe that the rising of a Shiite Crescent serves US strategic interests, and that the Iranian-Israeli relationship is essentially one of disengagement, and that the US-Iran-Israel axis is the most plausible axis for specific superiority in the Middle East region, especially on top of the ruins of an officially divided Iraq. (...)

The war in Iraq was a key aspect of a strategic shift that resulted in the consolidation, the success, as well as the undeniable advantages to both Iran and Israel, seen by the architects of this strategy as the natural allies in the drive to contain the Sunni influence and, with it, any unwanted Arab aspirations for superiority.

In these years Stop the War has established good relations with Motqada al-Sadr’s movement. For example last March Sheikh Zagani, foreign affairs spokesperson for Moqtada al-Sadr, spoke at the London rally organized by Stop the War.

To avoid another barbaric act and in consideration of the dramatic political and social consequences that such an act would have in Iraq and in the whole Middle East region, I urge you to endorse the call made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour for restraint by the government of Iraq in the execution of the death sentences imposed by the Iraqi high tribunal and to consider to use your channels to try to stop this other announced sectarian lynching.

Thank you for your time and for all the work you do to bring about peace and justice.

In solidarity,
Gabriele Zamparini

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UPDATE: UN chief urges Iraq to suspend executions

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UPDATE:

STOP THE EXECUTIONS
The Illegality of the Executions of Mr Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti and Judge Awad Al-Bandar
Dr Curtis F J Doebbler, international human rights lawyer and attorney to President Saddam Hussein. Washington, DC, 8 January 2007