Scream Quietly...in Blue--Layla Anwar (An Arab Woman Blues)

Tweet The pain and degradation of the women of Iraq under occupation is described here. Go here to read even more of this sad tale wrought in our names by the US gov't. http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2007/06/scream-quietlyin-blue.html

"Salam is a female relative. She lives in a sunni area. A sunni area that is now infiltrated by the militias from Iran. The militias of the Mullahs. A sunni area thought to be a walled fortress. No such thing, alas.

"A few days ago she went during broad daylight to her son's school. He is only 11. She wanted to get his exam results. She was ecstatic when the teacher told her that he passed. She said to herself, with all what they are going through, he still managed to pass...She took the piece of paper. One piece of good news she thought to herself.

"As she was leaving the gate of the school, a group of armed men approached her and pushed her at gunpoint into a car. She was kidnapped for 48 hours. That same day, 4 female teachers were shot in the head as they walked out from the gates of the schools...

"I was not able to speak to Salam and you will know why later on. But her husband told me and I had lots of difficulty understanding what he was saying. He was crying so hard and I had never seen him cry that way before...I had to make him repeat his sentences several times before I got all the details of her abduction, of her kidnapping.

"Salam is a very pretty woman in her 30's and she is veiled. So I guess her "dress mode" was not an issue...but then you never know.

"A mother of two. A postgraduate in Arabic literature, an ex-college teacher.

"She was laid off her work like so many others. She lives with her husband and ailing sick father. Her husband is unemployed. He too was sacked from his job since he belongs to the wrong sect. They live off 75$ a month. This is the money they get from her father's old age pension.

"The kidnappers called themselves a certain X "Jihad" group. No one has heard of them before. The only thing we know and that is according to Salam "they spoke Arabic with a very heavy foreign accent".

"They were 5 of them. They tied her hands and feet. And kept on beating her until they broke her jaw and bruised her all over. She shouted "What do you want from me?

"They threatened that if she shouts one more time, they will gang rape her and they kicked her up some more...They interrogated her for 24 hours. They wanted to know everything and I mean everything.

"Where she lives, who pays the rent, who her relatives are (and she did give names under duress), where they live, what their phone numbers are, how much money they had, where did the money come from, who were the people she mingled with, what is her husband's job, her father's, her mother's, her grandparents, her ancestors... And they beat her up some more...