Word: saddams
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...Saddam Hussein's regime - no friend of the ayatollahs of Iran - welcomed the MEK in the mid-'80s, inviting them to set up a military camp and supplying them with hundreds of armored vehicles and other forms of support. Although in recent months Camp Ashraf's residents have swapped their once-mandatory olive green military fatigues for civilian garb, both Iraq and the U.S State Department consider the MEK a terrorist group. In 2003, the U.S military disarmed Ashraf. (After a legal battle, the European Union removed the organization from its terrorist list in January; the United Kingdom...
While the Iraqi government has made it clear it's withdrawing the welcome mat extended to the MEK by Saddam Hussein, it has stopped short of saying how it will get them to leave. Despite its assurances against forced repatriation, especially if individuals may be harmed in their home country, MEK members fear they will be deported to Iran, where they say they will face imprisonment or execution. MEK representatives talk loudly of a potential humanitarian catastrophe. (See one photographer's picture diary of the Iraq...
That's quite a jump from her first rambunctious appearance, in 2002, as a housemate on the reality-TV show Big Brother. Goody endeared and appalled with her ignorance--she wondered who "Heinzstein" might be and thought Saddam Hussein was a boxer. Her return to the Big Brother house in 2007 nearly finished her career after she clashed with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty amid accusations of racism...
Iraq's civic society has blossomed since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who sought to rigidly repress it. There are some 6,250 registered organizations operating in the country today, as well as a Ministry of State for Civil Society Affairs and civil society committees in provincial governments. But there are still limitations. NGOs cannot merge with one another or form networks without the permission of the government. Furthermore, the participation of non-Iraqis, even in international NGOs, will be limited to 25% of an organization...
Khaled al-Asadi, a member of parliament's committee on civil society organizations, says that although Saddam's dictatorial regime was toppled, some of its habits linger. "Certain groups within government want to put their fingerprints all over the work of NGOs and the law governing them," he says. "They still think in terms of control and surveillance. The Iraqi people were raised on this mind-set. It's not easily or quickly erased...