The death of Sardasht Osman
Though it has not gotten nearly the press it deserves, an Iraqi Kurdish journalist and poet was kidnapped and killed by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq recently (nobody else could have or would have wanted to carry this out, so the denials from the Barazani clan are worth nothing as they usually are). His name is Zardasht Othman, and while his death is being reported by the same outlets that talk of the death of other journalists, the fact that this one was officially sanctioned really does make it quite different, and extremely troubling.
But really the first question is why did the authorites choose this particular journalist to torture and to kill (yes they tortured him first, Barazani's folks learned a few things from Saddamist rule it seems). After all, Iraqi Kurdistan does have a fairly free press, which is not to say there is no intimidation, or roughing up, or harassment, or threats, but I've seen some pretty negative things said in various papers from time to time, and this is the first really major assassination. It's odd to do now, after an election, the man was not exactly quiet before the election and was a prominent opposition voice, and certainly the Kurdish opposition Change Party (literally, that's what they call themselves--Obama has gone viral) is predictably up in arms, but not dead or under house arrest for protesting and pretty much openly accusing the regime of something everyone knows the bastards did. So why did they kill this ONE guy? If you're going to send a message, you'd think it would be more robust than this. All this did is stir up a hornet's nest of protest and sure in the end the regime is there and won't go away, but it doesn't look good and certainly probably from their own strategic interest point of view would have been better to avoid and let the man speak rather than kill him and then have to deal with the protests that followed, He wasn't Rafik Hariri, he was just a journalist, but now he's a hero.
The answer why him appears to be that he has been more provocative than most, and in particular, he wrote an article that landed him serious death threats. The oped was entitled " I have a crush (انا اغشق) Barazani's dauhter. That's my translation, the point is that the word "love" isn't quite right, it's a bit more clearly about marriage type lust/love than just the generic term love would suggest. But the point of the article is not at all about Barazani's daughter, in fact she's not even really a character, it's in the voice of a simple person who cannot seem to succeed in Iraq because he has no connections and is looking for the ultimate one in order to achieve all of his dreams. It is an eloquent and clearly provocative exposition of the shameful division within Iraqi society of haves and have nots, a demonstration of how poorly the state serves its "have nots", how meaningless government services tend to be for them, how unconcerned the state is with their well being, how law constrains them but not those against whom they need redress (the haves, who are above the law and use it as an instrument of social control), and as important as all else, how impossible it is to become a have unless you have family connections, because merit and skill and quality have nothing to do with how people rise in this society. It is a brave voice, using the theme of Barazani's daughter to grab attention, but then moving by the second line to how wonderful it would be to be Barazani's son in law, and leaving the daughter behind. Others have said this, in fact it's said often in iraq (a running theme of Friday sermons), we do have a free press by and large, but it rarely is said this well, or this brazenly.
But he mentioned Barazani's daughter is the real problem. How dare you stain her it was suggested, give us your name, picture and email address, others demanded, Some even wanted his real address, ironically themselves sending him anonymous notes to make this implicit threat. (Othman in a subsequent editorial points out not only the irony but the logistical impossibility with complying with the request of supplying information when the one who wants the information sent to them is anonymous). The storm seemed to catch Othman a bit off guard, he mused openly whether Barazani's daughter was a nun such that she was supposed to be above being mentioned at all in a paper (though I've heard a few nun jokes I could relay to the Kurds if they think nuns are somehow off limits in our discourse).
In any event, the whole notion of staining the family through mentioning the women seemed to be what sparked the current interest in this fellow, or at least seemed to raise the ire of readers of his Kurdistan Post pieces. That's when the death threats came, shortly after that is when he was killed. It all just seems so ironic. In many ways Iraq is a nation that has come to value free press, journalists have been more outspoken, democracy has taken firmer hold, and people have become more active citizens. But you go to the family, and we're back straight into Middle Ages. You stain the honor of the women, we kill you. You as a woman stain your own family honor we kill you too. I heard a judge say that--an Iraqi judge, one who speaks of the rule of law and defends Iraq's Criminal Procedure Code and Penal Code (which DO criminalize honor killings though unfortunatley not as strictly as other murders) and he tells me to my face his daughter wants to marry a man he doesn't approve and tries it, he will kill her. Not disown, not scream at, kill. A damn JUDGE. Outside of the family, we've done well in Iraq, on democracy and free speech as per above but even as concerns women, relative to much of the Middle East. No serious person in iraq thinks women shouldn't vote or serve as ministers. The candidate with the second highest number of votes in the last election was a Sadrist woman. Not a secular, a Sadrist--the Sadrists vote for women in large numbers. Ditto on progress in female education, another complete nonissue in Iraq, women go to college nobody thinks that this is bad. Take it back to the family though, and everything's different. Back to the Middle Ages. I don't just mean strict application of substantive Islamic law in a manner unheard of in practically every other area of law, I mean other matters that aren't even shari'a based, like this nonsense of killing someone for writing a newspaper editorial than mentions your daughter.
I saw this phenomenon dozens of times in Iraq, at least through 2006 (when the cops finally started to come together), where you'd be trying to figure out why it is nobody thought it suspicious when three non-Iraqi Arabs move into their neighborhood and start coming and going at the oddest times with other buddies. None of our business they'd say if I asked who the hell those people were. But of course if one of them stared at one of the women in the neighborhood for let's say two seconds, THAT would start to become their business. The family is their business, security is someone else's problem, even if you see something rather suspicious going on. That the worst thing that could happen as a result of ogling (honestly make it the worst thing) is considerably less awful than the result of a terrorist bomb is not part of the thought process because the two are not connected.
Anyway, I'll stop, I'm bitter. We've lost another courageous voice, nothing to celebrate today.
HAH
But really the first question is why did the authorites choose this particular journalist to torture and to kill (yes they tortured him first, Barazani's folks learned a few things from Saddamist rule it seems). After all, Iraqi Kurdistan does have a fairly free press, which is not to say there is no intimidation, or roughing up, or harassment, or threats, but I've seen some pretty negative things said in various papers from time to time, and this is the first really major assassination. It's odd to do now, after an election, the man was not exactly quiet before the election and was a prominent opposition voice, and certainly the Kurdish opposition Change Party (literally, that's what they call themselves--Obama has gone viral) is predictably up in arms, but not dead or under house arrest for protesting and pretty much openly accusing the regime of something everyone knows the bastards did. So why did they kill this ONE guy? If you're going to send a message, you'd think it would be more robust than this. All this did is stir up a hornet's nest of protest and sure in the end the regime is there and won't go away, but it doesn't look good and certainly probably from their own strategic interest point of view would have been better to avoid and let the man speak rather than kill him and then have to deal with the protests that followed, He wasn't Rafik Hariri, he was just a journalist, but now he's a hero.
The answer why him appears to be that he has been more provocative than most, and in particular, he wrote an article that landed him serious death threats. The oped was entitled " I have a crush (انا اغشق) Barazani's dauhter. That's my translation, the point is that the word "love" isn't quite right, it's a bit more clearly about marriage type lust/love than just the generic term love would suggest. But the point of the article is not at all about Barazani's daughter, in fact she's not even really a character, it's in the voice of a simple person who cannot seem to succeed in Iraq because he has no connections and is looking for the ultimate one in order to achieve all of his dreams. It is an eloquent and clearly provocative exposition of the shameful division within Iraqi society of haves and have nots, a demonstration of how poorly the state serves its "have nots", how meaningless government services tend to be for them, how unconcerned the state is with their well being, how law constrains them but not those against whom they need redress (the haves, who are above the law and use it as an instrument of social control), and as important as all else, how impossible it is to become a have unless you have family connections, because merit and skill and quality have nothing to do with how people rise in this society. It is a brave voice, using the theme of Barazani's daughter to grab attention, but then moving by the second line to how wonderful it would be to be Barazani's son in law, and leaving the daughter behind. Others have said this, in fact it's said often in iraq (a running theme of Friday sermons), we do have a free press by and large, but it rarely is said this well, or this brazenly.
But he mentioned Barazani's daughter is the real problem. How dare you stain her it was suggested, give us your name, picture and email address, others demanded, Some even wanted his real address, ironically themselves sending him anonymous notes to make this implicit threat. (Othman in a subsequent editorial points out not only the irony but the logistical impossibility with complying with the request of supplying information when the one who wants the information sent to them is anonymous). The storm seemed to catch Othman a bit off guard, he mused openly whether Barazani's daughter was a nun such that she was supposed to be above being mentioned at all in a paper (though I've heard a few nun jokes I could relay to the Kurds if they think nuns are somehow off limits in our discourse).
In any event, the whole notion of staining the family through mentioning the women seemed to be what sparked the current interest in this fellow, or at least seemed to raise the ire of readers of his Kurdistan Post pieces. That's when the death threats came, shortly after that is when he was killed. It all just seems so ironic. In many ways Iraq is a nation that has come to value free press, journalists have been more outspoken, democracy has taken firmer hold, and people have become more active citizens. But you go to the family, and we're back straight into Middle Ages. You stain the honor of the women, we kill you. You as a woman stain your own family honor we kill you too. I heard a judge say that--an Iraqi judge, one who speaks of the rule of law and defends Iraq's Criminal Procedure Code and Penal Code (which DO criminalize honor killings though unfortunatley not as strictly as other murders) and he tells me to my face his daughter wants to marry a man he doesn't approve and tries it, he will kill her. Not disown, not scream at, kill. A damn JUDGE. Outside of the family, we've done well in Iraq, on democracy and free speech as per above but even as concerns women, relative to much of the Middle East. No serious person in iraq thinks women shouldn't vote or serve as ministers. The candidate with the second highest number of votes in the last election was a Sadrist woman. Not a secular, a Sadrist--the Sadrists vote for women in large numbers. Ditto on progress in female education, another complete nonissue in Iraq, women go to college nobody thinks that this is bad. Take it back to the family though, and everything's different. Back to the Middle Ages. I don't just mean strict application of substantive Islamic law in a manner unheard of in practically every other area of law, I mean other matters that aren't even shari'a based, like this nonsense of killing someone for writing a newspaper editorial than mentions your daughter.
I saw this phenomenon dozens of times in Iraq, at least through 2006 (when the cops finally started to come together), where you'd be trying to figure out why it is nobody thought it suspicious when three non-Iraqi Arabs move into their neighborhood and start coming and going at the oddest times with other buddies. None of our business they'd say if I asked who the hell those people were. But of course if one of them stared at one of the women in the neighborhood for let's say two seconds, THAT would start to become their business. The family is their business, security is someone else's problem, even if you see something rather suspicious going on. That the worst thing that could happen as a result of ogling (honestly make it the worst thing) is considerably less awful than the result of a terrorist bomb is not part of the thought process because the two are not connected.
Anyway, I'll stop, I'm bitter. We've lost another courageous voice, nothing to celebrate today.
HAH
My response to your article “The death of Sardasht Osman”.
Please visit http://independentkurdistanjournalism.blogspot.com/2010/06/response-to-haider-ala-hamoudis-article.html
Regards
H.Hylan
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