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Current human rights efforts are failing
MHRI 5 [“First Periodical Report of Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq”, http://www.brusselstribunal.org/survey111105.htm#6]
Many workers in the field of human rights have been denied access to the American and the Iraqi jails. The field team of the Baghdad Center for Human Rights was denied access to the city of Fallujah. One member of the team was assaulted and the others were expelled. Ali Al-Shammaa', the chairman of the Iraqi Organization of Human Rights, along with 3 of the members were killed in his office. Nothing was taken from the office, indicating that the criminals were not looters but rather that they object to the spread of ideas and to the education of the human rights in the new Iraqi society.
HR Racism Add-on
US occupation facilitates racism
MHRI 5 [“First Periodical Report of Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq”, http://www.brusselstribunal.org/survey111105.htm#6]
One of the biggest crimes committed by occupation is establishing the bases of racism by dividing the temporary government authorities and institutions according to racial and religious backgrounds. This practice was widened by the bad-reputed Emergency Law. Therewith, if a certain political party takes control of a certain ministry, the former staff and cadres, especially those of higher and key positions, are being dismissed and released from their offices, so as to be replaced by new staff pertaining to that political party. This, for example, has happened in the Ministry of Electricity at the beginning of the Al-Ja'afari government period. The newly appointed Minister of Electricty belonged to the Shi'ite confession; three General Directors within the Ministry, all belonging to the Sunnite confession, were then dismissed and replaced by three Shi'a counterparts. The same happened in other ministries. Baan Solagh, the Minister of Interior in Al-Ja'afari government, did the same in his Ministry. He further used security forces which were mainly constituted of the militia of his party (SCIRI). In one incident, a group of security forces (Group 20), who were being trained in Jordan, were surprised to see upon their return, that the post that they were supposed to fill had been given to other people, while they had been fired for no justified reasons. This incident led to the dismissal of 1200 graduates of the security forces, and was confirmed by Noori Alnoori, the General Inspector in the Ministry of Interior. There is a current debate to merge the different parties' militias into the Iraqi Army without considering the necessity of forming the army from independent individuals who will only follow the orders of the government and not the directions of their parties or who are affected by their parties' policies. In the city of Samawa and despite the approval of Dr. Ibraheem Al-Ja'afari to appoint 1,987 police men, many of the nominated were replaced by others with different excuses. The replacsed police men organized a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday, 19th July 2005, demanding their rights. The demonstration was ended when the police opened fire on the demonstrators in the presence of the governorate's Mayor Muhammad Alziadi, killing Razzaq Faisal Salman and injuring 7 others. The security forces have committed many arrests based on citizen's confessions, especially in Sunni dominated neighborhoods in Baghdad. In Alamiriya, Alkhadhra, Al'iskan, and Abu Ghoraib persons were arrested after viewing their IDs according to their confessions and family names. There are sectarian and racial discriminations in the arrests being made in the cities of Al-Mosul and Karkouk. Kurdish arrestees were released shortly after their arrests because the investigating officers were Kurds. It is worth noticing that the sectarian feelings are being used only by some of the political parties and militias who want to gain wide public support, employing sectarian propaganda and using their media to strengthen their influence, while a large portion of the Iraqi people reject and resent such racist methods. In the northern parts of the governorate of Babel, random killings take place among the different religious confessions. The aim of these killings is to start a sectarian civil war that will spill over to other parts of the country. Some of the citizens in that area reported that the violence was started by militias of some of the political parties.
Racism is a D-Rule. Ethics demands individual resistance to racism or else we risk extinction
Joseph Barndt, co-director of Crossroads, a multicultural ministry, 1991, Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America, p. 155-6
The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust: the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and predominately white minority of the global population derives its power and privilege from the sufferings of the vast majority of peoples of color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.
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