Most significant act of civil disobedience by a religious leader since Gandhi's salt march in India?

by eeekkk Wed Aug 25, 2004 23:38

Check out this extract from a report from a journalist in Najaf today. This journalist is usually anti Sadr.

" I was on the roof trying to get my BGan to connect when Najaf’s finest burst onto the roof with a Kalashnikov and order me and the other journalists down to the lobby. The cops had raided the hotel and forced all the journalists out onto the street. We were terrified. The cops yelled at us and pointed their weapons toward us. Several large trucks were waiting and knew we would be loaded onto them. Then they started shooting.

“Yella, yella” they ordered us. BANG BANG! They fired their weapons just over our heads forcing us to crouch. The foreign journalists and the Arab media were separated into separate trucks and we were all brought to the police station at gunpoint. On the way, they continued to scream at us and point their weapons in our faces. I tried to put my money in my bag, but a young police officer thrust his Kalashnikov at me and rifled through my bag.

Finally, we made it to the police station. My friend Phillip urged me to ride it out, be calm, smile a little. Then we were herded into the police chief’s office for the most bizarre press conference of my life.

The Shrine would be stormed tonight, he said, and we would be allowed to get on a bus and go visit it tomorrow to see the damage the Mahdi Army had done to it. The Sistani protesters in Kufa were really Mahdi guys and they had to be killed. Oh, and thank you for coming.

A few of us put up a fight, demanding why they couldn’t just invite us down for a presser instead of kidnapping us. Oh, no, the commander said, that must have been a mistake. I just asked them to bring you to me… There was no order to brandish weapons, push journalists around and fire into the air. One cop, a lieutenant, just smiled at us when we pointed our fingers at him and said he was the one leading the raid, yelling and pointing his side arm at us."

by eeekkk Wed Aug 25, 2004 23:49

16 killed 100+ wounded - full report at link

by * Thu Aug 26, 2004 18:22

And it appears from this report that the crowds are not distingushing much between the so called Moderate Al Sistani and the so called radical Sadr.

Extracts:

"The gates of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine were forced open on Thursday by a sea of weeping and chanting Shiite Muslims, ending a siege which had lasted for weeks of fighting with United States forces."

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"Further up the stream of at least 20 000 demonstrators, in the Al-Jadida neighbourhood outside the Old City, a surreal scene unfolded as bewildered American soldiers trapped in their tanks watched as posters of Sistani and Moqtada posters were waved in their faces.

The presence of the US troops in the neighbourhood underlined that the battle was not over and that a tense "armed truce" could follow the jubilation.

US forces were still deployed all along the edge of the sprawling Valley of Peace cemetery, one of the largest in the world, as well as in several neighbourhoods outside the Old City. "

by * Thu Aug 26, 2004 18:34

Updates appearing at this link:

by 8 Thu Aug 26, 2004 18:50

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2004/08/26/internacional/1093529873.html

nice to beat rte bbc to it

by 2 Thu Aug 26, 2004 19:10

THOUSANDS OF SHI'A CIVILIANS ENTER SHRINE OF IMAM ALI AND BREAK THE SIEGE.

NAYAF (IRAQ) | MADRID.- The siege of the mosque of Ali has ended. The thousands of civilians who traveled to Najaf accompanying their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Sistani, have defied the tanks which besieged the holy site and have entered inside reports journalist Javier Espinosa from inside the shrine.

 To shouts of `Long Live Islam', `Fire Allawi' and `USA Go Home,' an avalanche of people has taken over the shrine where Muqtada al Sadr's militiament have been entrenched for three weeks.

 EL MUNDO's special correspondent reports on this historic moment shortly after the tanks pulled back before the tide of Shi'a faithful

As the main gate to the shrine was opened, Al Sadr's men formed a path of honor for the advancing crowd, which was unarmed and carrying portraits of Sistani.  Chest-beating, dancing and song praising Allah accompanied the Shi'ite festival as in another part of the city, Sistani and Al Sadr were negotiating...some press agencies report that clergy representatives had reached an agreement to end the conflict.

  The situation inside the mosque had deteriorated in the last few hours.  In a tiled chamber, dozens of wounded were bleeding without medical attention.  Some lay dying in agony beside the tomb of Ali. The siege of Al Sadr's men threatened to become a tragedy until Sistani returned from London where he had undergone surgery. This morning Sistani began a journey from Basrah to Najaf followed by thousands of supporters intent on relieving the situation in Najaf and negotiating with al Sadr.

According to the journalist dispatched by EL MUNDO, this event is a major defeat for Prime Minister Iyad Alaui, and for the United States who witnessed the Shi'a liberating their own mosque.

by green/black Fri Aug 27, 2004 15:08

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Photoessay
http://homepage.mac.com/callbritton/PhotoAlbum30.html

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Meanwhile, the full extent of the destruction inflicted on Najaf by the US military may never be fully appreciated in the U.S. itself. How many civilians did our troops kill in their campaign in a densely populated urban area against the Sadrist street gangs? I find chilling the words of John Burns and Dexter Filkin of the New York Times

' One of the last American actions before the cease-fire went into effect involved the use of a 2,000-pound, laser-guided bomb to strike a hotel about 130 yards from the shrine's southwest wall, in an area known to American commanders as "motel row." '

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109359005659851262

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Before Sadr's supporters began their uprising, they made their demands for elections and an end to occupation through sermons, peaceful protests and newspaper articles. US forces responded by shutting down their newspapers, firing on their demonstrations and bombing their neighbourhoods. It was only then that Mr Sadr went to war against the occupation. And every round fired out of Butler's helicopter doesn't make Des Moines and Santa Monica safer, as he claims. It makes the Mahdi army stronger.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1291796,00.html

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by real suspicious of these bbc threads but like this comment - Fri Aug 27, 2004 17:50

Najaf, Falluja, Baquba, Ramadi, Samarrah and Sadr city will live on in legend as cities of heroes who refused to surrender their dignity, pride and honour to a brutal self interested colonial occupation. Faced with the mightiest military powers in the world parked right on their doorstep and subjected to relentless bombings, shellings and assaults from some of the most lethal conventional weapons yet devised by man, these lions have chosen to stand up and be counted when the whole world expected them to roll over and die.

By their defiance and determination they stand between the billions of people of the poor world and direct, open imperialist domination. They have made it clear that there would be a price to be paid for daylight robbery. That while people of the third world might be poor, they would defend their dignity, even at the cost of their lives. That missiles, bombs and tanks will not on their own accord crush legitimate resistance to the latest attempt by Wall Street and the City of London to carve up the world's resources and rob the third world of their natural wealth.
Kola, Dunstable UK