[WCUSP] Iraq's Lost Generation

[yvonne simmons]

, 2 Jul 2007 11:38:02 -0700
> 
> "ASSASSINATIONS ARE NOT SPECIFIC TO SECT OR GENDER
> BUT VICTIMS ARE 
> PREDOMINANTLY ARAB."
> 
> From the National Association of British Arabs
> 
>  Dr Ismail Jalili's Report to the House of Lords
> Commission on Iraq titled: 
> Iraq's Lost Generation: Impact & Implications.
> 
> "Abstract
> 
> Problems facing the intelligentsia of Iraq have been
> neglected in the scale 
> of that country's ongoing tragedy. Since 2003, the
> new
> phenomenon of targeted and systematic
> assassinations, kidnappings and 
> threats to professionals and academics has surfaced.
> These are escalating.
> 
> Over 830 assassinations have been documented,
> victims killed along with 
> their families. Numbers includes: 380 university
> academics and doctors, 210 lawyers and judges, and
> 243 journalists/media 
> workers but not other experts, school teachers or
> students; neither professionals displaced internally
> and externally.  All 
> aspects of life are affected.
> The victims are often highly qualified, PhD or
> equivalent.  Assassinations 
> are not specific to sect or gender but victims are
> predominantly Arab.
> 
> Hundreds of legal workers have left Iraq in addition
> to those already killed 
> and injured, thereby denying thousands of Iraqis
> their
> legal rights.  Working lawyers numbers have
> decreased by at least 40% in the 
> past year alone and hundreds of cases shelved.
> Neither has sports escaped; the President and 36
> member National Iraqi 
> Olympic Committee were kidnapped in July 2006; the
> majority are thought to be dead.  These were the
> only democratically elected 
> Olympic representatives in the region.
> The reported incidents are only the tip of an
> iceberg; many cases go 
> unreported. This is in addition to the huge exodus
> to
> neighbouring countries and, for the lucky few, to
> Europe.
> 
> Unless urgent action is taken to redress this
> situation, it will be too late 
> to save Iraq's intelligentsia for the immediate and
> foreseeable future; a disastrous situation for
> Iraq."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



       
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