By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

HILLA, Iraq – A string of bombings in Iraq on December 24 have killed more than thirty four people. The bombs also injured over one hundred people. Among the bombings was a double explosion in the central Iraqi town of Hilla. Additionally there as a bombing in Sadr City, a predominantly Shi’ite district in Baghdad.

The bombings came three days before the climax of Ashura, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converge on Kerbala to mourn the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein. The forty day mourning period commemorates this 680AD event that sealed the split between Sunni and Shi’ite. Most of the individuals killed by the bombings were Shi’ite pilgrims attending mourning ceremonies.

The two bombs in Hilla, the capital of Babil province, targeted Shi’ite pilgrims who gathered at a bus station to mark Ashura.  The first bomb was in a car and exploded at 2pm. The second bomb came fifteen minutes later when police had arrived. According to Fadel Hassa, an eyewitness, “police came to disarm a bomb some twenty meters from the site of the first attack, and it exploded as they arrived, causing numerous injuries among passersby and the police.

The bomb in Sadr City appeared to target a funeral procession. The attack killed at least nine people and injured thirty three. The bomb went off in a tent where mourners were gathered. According to Ahmed Rushdi, a journalist in Baghdad, “they were not by the hand of al Qaeda – they were not suicide bombers, but mostly car bombs and bombs besides cars.”

Another bomb in Baghdad went off in the eastern district of Zafraniya, south of the city center, and killed three people. The Zafraniya bombing injured twenty people and was located near the area where a preliminary Ashura ceremony was taking place. Additionally, a bomb blast in the Shi’ite sacred city of Karbala, about one hundred kilometers south of Baghdad, killed two people and injured four others.

More than twenty five thousand security forces have been assigned by the Iraqi government to protect the Shi’ite pilgrims during the celebrations for Ashura.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Iraq Attacks Kill Scores on Eve of Christmas, Ashura – 24 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Scores Killed in Iraq Blasts – 24 December 2009

BBC – Iraq Bomb Explosions Leave 23 People Dead – 24 December 2009

Guardian – Iraq Sectarian Bomb Attacks Kills 26 – 24 December 2009

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ISFAHAN, Iran – On December 23 Iranian security forces clashed with opposition supporters demonstrating in the central city of Isfahan. The clashes occurred reportedly as large crowds gathered to mourn the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Opposition websites claim that pro-reform protesters had been injured by the police in the clashes.

The violence erupted when thousands of Iranians attempted to gather for a memorial to Montazeri at a mosque. Security forces and hard-line militia men beat opposition protesters and fired tear gas into crowds. Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Iran, said that witnesses allege that they had not heard shots fired. Opposition websites report that over fifty opposition supporters had been arrested.

The government’s crackdown marked the first time that clerics who supported the opposition had been targeted. Basij militiamen surround the house and office of two prominent religious figures. They shouted slogans and broke windows, opposition websites reported.

The death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri gave new push to the opposition protests. Montazeri was a sharp critic Iranian leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He died December 20th at the age of 87 and a funeral held the following day in Qom  that drew tens of thousands of Iranians onto the streets.

Mehrad Khonsari, an Iranian affiars analyst in London and a former diplomat in Iran explains that “the government cannot allow for great celebrations of (Montazeri’s) life to be carried out given the fact that that would be counter the kind of policies they been making in the course of the last 20 years.” He says that in an increase in government pressure is inevitable as the opposition has been incrementally increasing their pressure.

The United States government expressed concern with how Iran’s security forces acted in the clash. State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters, “Iran is increasingly showing itself to be a police state.” Crowley explained that the Iranian government’s security forces are attempting to eliminate the fact that “clearly the aspirations of the Iranian people (are) for a different relationship with their government.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – Iran Behaves Increasingly Like a ‘Police State’: US” – 23 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Clashes Reported at Iran Protests – 23 December 2009

Associated Press – Police, Protesters Clash in Southern Iran – 23 December 2009

BBC – Clashes at Montazeri Ceremony – 23 December 2009

By Brandon Kaufman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – Officials admitted on December 21 that Israel harvested organs without family members’ permission from both Palestinians and Israelis throughout the 1990s. The practice reportedly ended in 2000.

 

The admission came after an interview with Jehuda Hiss from 2000 was released after allegations of organ harvesting in Israel appeared in Swedish newspaper during the summer of 2009. The Swedish report had alleged that Israeli soldiers had stolen organs from Palestinian men after killing them; Israel immediately denied the claims, calling them anti-Semitic. Sweden refused to apologize for the article, citing freedom of the press.

 

In the 2000 interview with University of California at Berkeley anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Jehuda Hiss said that the practice began with harvesting corneas for transplants in public hospitals, and spread to harvesting other parts such as skin, heart valves, and bones.

 

“Whatever was done was highly informal,” said Hiss. “No permission was asked from the family.”

 

Hiss said that after getting permission from family members to do an autopsy, “we felt free” to harvest organs. Israel’s health ministry told Israeli television that transplant guidelines during the 1990s were “not clear,” and that since 2000 “Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law.”

 

After she released the interview, Scheper-Hughes said she did not believe that Israel murdered Palestinians for their organs, though the practice had implications that were, at the very least, unsettling.

 

“The symbolism of taking skin out of a population that is considered to be the enemy and using it for skin for the military, that’s something that—just in terms of symbolic weight—has to be reconsidered,” Scheper-Hughes told Israel’s Channel 2.

 

After complaints surfaced at the end of the 1990s about improper practices at Abu Kabir, an investigation was launched and there was a change in institute management.

 

The Palestinian Authority’s Central Council announced after the interview had been aired that its Minister of Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, would launch its own investigation and report back to the Palestinian government.

 

For more information, please see:

 

ABC News (Australia) – Israel Admits Organ Harvesting – 21 December 2009

 

Al Jazeera – Israel Admits to Organ Thefts – 21 December 2009

 

CNN – Israel Harvested Organs Without Permission, Officials Say – 21 December 2009

 

Ma’an News Agency – PA to Follow Up on Organ Harvesting Allegations – 21 December 2009

 

Post Chronicle – Israel Organ Harvesting Palestinians and Soldiers; Secrets Revealed – 21 December 2009

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A series of bombings killed nine people in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Mosul on December 15. The bombings come only one week after suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital killed one hundred twenty seven people. The new blasts have increased pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to improve security.

In Baghdad, three cars were packed with bombs and were parked near different entrances to the Green Zone. One was located near the Foreign Ministry while two were located near the Immigration Ministry. At 7:30am, when Iraqis were entering the area to come to work, the three vehicles exploded within minutes of each other. Five people were killed by the bombings in the Iraqi capital and at least sixteen were wounded.

The bombings in Baghdad were the fourth in recent months to target government buildings and hit near the Green Zone, Baghdad’s most protected neighborhood. The Green Zone contains the parliament, ministries and the United States Embassy. An Iraqi woman, Um Ali, questioned how it was possible for the three vehicles to enter and explode when “there were two military checkpoints using detectors at the beginning of the street.”

The bombing in Mosul, a city two hundred twenty five miles away from the Iraqi capital, took place approximately four hours later. Two car bombs and a roadside mine went off and killed for people. The bombings took place near a church in a busy neighborhood and wounded up to forty people. Mosul is the third largest city in Iraqi and has been a lingering urban foothold for al Qaeda despite an overall drop in violence across the country.

The recent rash in bombings in Iraq has caused Iraqi civilians the ability of the Iraqi government to provide security leading up the country’s much anticipated elections next year. The government has stepped up its efforts to catch those responsible for attacks and prevent future attacks by giving a cash reward for information. The Iraqi cabinet has approved plans to give as much at eighty five thousand dollars to informants who give-up bomb makers. The plan was announced by the Iraqi Prime Minister, who is running for re-election in March.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Iraq Offers Reward For Information On Bomb Factories – 16 December 2009

Los Angeles Times – In Baghdad, More Blasts Near Iraq Government Center – 16 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Iraq Bombings Leave Several Dead – 15 December 2009

AP – Explosions in 2 Major Iraq Cities Kill 9 People – 15 December 2009