Support Basra students

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Monday April 04, 2005 17:28 by PM - ISN

On March 16, students in Basra, Iraq began a strike in protest at an attack carried out in Basra University’s engineering faculty by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Army of the Mahdi, in which al-Sadr’s thugs, aided by Iranian agents, beat up students and destroyed their belongings. They ripped off the clothes of female students and singled out in particular one young christian woman. The students fought back and, when a male student tried to defend his female friend, he was shot dead. The authorities turned a blind eye. The strike ended on March 22, but the students’ campaign against islamist violence continues and needs international support and solidarity.

Al-Sadr’s gang and the city’s tribal elders had threatened to bombard the university if the students did not issue an apology for their “blasphemous” slogans against political islam. They even threatened to kill bus and taxi drivers who transported students to the demonstrations at the university. However, the students’ determination and the support they have received from freedom-loving people in Basra have now forced the Mahdi Army’s representative, Asad al-Basri, into giving an apology to the students, published in the well-known Basra newspaper Al-Manara al-Basriya.

The Basra Student Working Committee, which was founded in December last year and represents students in the city’s university and high schools, commented: “Recent events in our city show that Iraqi workers and students are determined to resist political islam, and can win if they are united. The Student Working Committee will continue to work for the creation of a progressive student movement in Iraq.”

We must continue to support the Basra students’ campaign:

to bring al-Sadr’s assassins to justice;
for compensation for the victims of the attack;
for the expulsion of islamist militia headquarters from Iraqi universities;
for separation of religion from the state and the education system;
for the creation of a united, progressive student movement in Basra and other cities.
Please send messages of solidarity to the Students Working Committee to studentvoice@basrahstudent.4t.com and copies to us.
Houzan Mahmoud
houzan73@yahoo.co.uk