Iraqi women say freedoms are slipping away - Yahoo! News

Iraqi women say freedoms are slipping away - Yahoo! News: "Sat Sep 24, 5:08 PM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Women's rights activists in
Iraq say rising extremism is restricting their freedom, even as the country prepares to vote on a constitution that is touted as one of the Arab world's most progressive regarding women.

'Women cannot walk freely out in the street,' said activist Ban Jamil, who directs the Rasafa Branch of Assyrian Women Union, a local non-governmental organisation in Baghdad.

'Women face lack of respect when they walk uncovered,' said Jamil, a Christian, who said women are insulted if they show too much skin or walk in public without wearing the Islamic veil, or hijab, to cover their hair.

She blamed 'imported extremist doctrines, which were never experienced in the past' for the new restrictions.

The tide of Islamisation has risen in Iraq as fundamentalist Shiite parties have come to power following the ouster of former dictator
Saddam Hussein.
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"Women have the right to participate fully in public activities," he said in August, pointing out that 25 percent of parliament seats were reserved for women.

But activists say that the current female MPs do not represent women's advocates and were brought in by male-dominated political parties to fill the 25 percent quota.

"These were voted in to fill the quota... None of them serves in the politburo of any of their parties... They are mere mouthpieces," Jamil said. "