ISIS’s Cruelty Toward Women Gets Little Attention

Tucked away in a recent New York Times story on military operations against ISIS by Iraqi special forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga was a brief description of what these troops discovered when they entered a village in Iraq that had been occupied by ISIS fighters. A naked woman, tied to a tree, who had been repeatedly raped by ISIS fighters. Another woman was discovered in a second village, similarly naked, tied down and repeatedly raped. The fighters, it appears, are “rewarded” by being allowed to have their way with captured women.

ISIS has received considerable world attention for its savage beheadings, executions of captured soldiers and men in conquered towns and villages, violence against Christians and Shiites, and the destruction of non-Sunni shrines and places of worship. But its barbarity against women has been treated as a side issue. Arab and Muslim governments, vocal on the threat ISIS poses to regional stability, have been virtually silent on ISIS’s systemic degradation, abuse, and humiliation of women. To the men of ISIS, women are an inferior race, to be enjoyed for sex and be discarded, or to be sold off as slaves.

From ISIS-captured territory in Syria, we saw a photograph of a line of women, covered from head to toe and tied to one another by a rope, as they were being led to a makeshift slave market. Little girls, who were going to school and playing with dolls before ISIS fighters arrived at their doorstep, were married off to men many times their age. ISIS set up marriage bureaus in captured Syrian towns to recruit virgins and widows to marry fighters, and also called on fellow jihadists in other countries to recruit brides for the fighters and send them to Syria. It is hardly likely that these “marriages” were based on consent, as is required in Islam. Where women are concerned, consent does not appear to exist in the lexicon of ISIS fighters.

When ISIS moved into Iraq, a similar set of atrocities followed. In ISIS-conquered towns, reports of women and girls having to undergo female genital mutilation spread like wildfire, until denied by ISIS’s savvy social media. Iraqi NGOs reported that scores of women of the Yezidi sect—an amalgam of Zoroastrianism and Islam—were taken captive. The older women were sold off as slaves and the young ones were kept as brides for the ISIS fighters. The nature of these forced marriages remains obscure.

Zakia Hakki, an Iraqi judge and a woman herself, says that the fighters leave behind pregnant women who, as “soiled goods,” are ostracized by their own societies, while their children are treated as illegitimate. These raped women become targets for honor killings in their own families and communities. The governments of Iraq and Syria have also failed to protect these women and give them any assistance; nor have Western NGOs been effective in looking after these abandoned women and children. ISIS’s men not only leave behind dead bodies in their wake but also women and children who are scarred for life.

In its propaganda, ISIS emphasizes women’s modesty and piety. It created the al-Khansaa female brigade to protect the morality of women and to ensure they appear totally veiled in public. The irony will not be lost on anyone.

Volunteer fighters from around the world, including from Western countries, who have joined ISIS are complicit in these crimes against women. These young men who grew up in Western cultures seem to have absorbed nothing regarding the value of human life and respect for women. Why are there are no demonstrations in Western and Muslim societies against this barbaric onslaught on women and girls? How much longer will the Muslim and Arab world watch these horrors against women and children before speaking out and acting forcefully to protect them and rid the region of the ISIS calamity?

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Haleh Esfandiari directs the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in Tehran for 105 days in 2007. This article was originally posted in the Washington Post. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Uzbekistan: Free Human Rights Defender Gaybullo Jalilov & All Prisoners of Conscience

Uzbekistan's Imprisoned Human Rights Defenders. Gaybullo Jalilov, 
49, is pictured on the bottom row, 2nd to the left (black & white ).

Earlier this month, on December 10, rights activists around the world celebrated International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Although the UDHR was passed by the UN General Assembly 65 years ago, its promise remains unfulfilled in states like Uzbekistan, where the government continues to persecute its own citizens for peacefully exercising their fundamental human rights.

Among the most basic liberties protected by the UDHR is right to freedom of belief. In 1998, 50 years after the adoption of the UDHR, the United States Congress adopted the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), which made religious freedom a priority for U.S. foreign policy. At the time of its passage, former Senator Sam Brownback, a leading advocate for religious freedom and supporter of the IRFA, expressed concern about the appalling state of religious freedom worldwide and urged the U.S. government to take a more active role in promoting respect for this fundamental human right abroad. Senator Brownback was especially concerned about the widespread violations of religious freedom in Uzbekistan, where “Muslims who [did] not conform to the government-prescribed ideas [were] imprisoned and often tortured.”

Indeed, Uzbekistan continues to be among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. The Uzbek government attempts to regulate all aspects of religious life from bans on women wearing hijab and men having beards to raiding religious gatherings and imprisoning individuals for practicing Islam outside state-sanctioned mosques. The government often charges those who practice their faith independently with religious extremism, even though at trial the prosecutors fail to present any evidence that the individuals promoted or participated in terrorist activities.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reports that there are as many as 10,000 individuals imprisoned in Uzbekistan on charges of religious extremism. Many of these individuals are also accused of “anti-constitutional activity” and are sentenced to extremely long prison terms. Once in prison, many face unsanitary conditions, a lack of basic medical care, and are often singled out for especially cruel treatment. Prison authorities commonly accuse religious prisoners of violating prison regulations, subjecting them to various punishments and longer prison sentences without any due process. Moreover, these prisoners are rendered ineligible for amnesty releases. The entire system appears designed to remove independent religious practice from society.

The case of Gaybullo Jalilov, a 49-year-old human rights defender and observant Muslim, exemplifies the fate of thousands of religious prisoners. He has been wrongly detained since September 5, 2009 on vaguely defined charges of “religious extremism” and “anti-constitutional activity.” Uzbek authorities detained Mr. Jalilov because of his work monitoring over 200 different cases of religious persecution in Uzbekistan and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. While in detention, Mr. Jalilov has suffered greatly. On one occasion, prison guards violently bludgeoned him with truncheons after he refused to sing the Uzbek national anthem, leaving him nearly deaf in both ears.

Since 2006, USCIRF has recommended that the United States designate Uzbekistan as “a country of particular concern” (CPC), a status given to countries with “systematic, ongoing and egregious” violations of religious rights. In 2011, the State Department designated Uzbekistan a CPC, which normally requires that the United States impose sanctions. However, the State Department issued a waiver for Uzbekistan, allowing the government to dodge the restrictive measures because of its key role in the Northern Distribution Network, a supply route for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Allowing Uzbekistan to escape responsibility sends the wrong message about the United States’ commitment to religious freedom. Uzbekistan and other states that systematically violate their citizens’ right to religious freedom should not get a pass. As we celebrate the adoption of the UDHR this month, the United States must recommit itself to the cause of religious freedom and hold accountable those regimes that continue ignore international law.

Gaybullo Jalilov Case (Freedom Now)

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Patrick Griffith is a Program Attorney at Freedom Now, a Washington D.C- based nongovernmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide. Freedom Now considers Gaybullo Jalilov to be a prisoner of conscience and advocates for his release.