Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric, has just finished his Friday sermon and his militiamen are securing the area around his car. One notices a woman, swathed in robe and head scarf. Everything but her face and hands are covered. Yet she is told to go stand in a corner, because the guards have to be alert and her "presence here confuses us."
"Is it because I'm a woman?" I ask.
PHOTO: AP
"Yes. Please stand there."
"Why do you treat women as though we are the devil?"
"No, on the contrary, we respect them."
Another day, another skirmish. For a woman reporter, doing one's job in Iraq's holiest city is a constant battle of the sexes.
NO EXPOSURE
Each day begins with important dress decisions, depending on where one is going. Najaf, a city of several hundred thousand, is the home of the shrine of Ali, Shiite Islam's most beloved saint, and to visit it, or call on any of al-Sadr's lieutenants who congregate in the neighborhood, maximum coverage is advisable -- an ankle-length cloak called an abaya, plus head scarf and socks. Nothing must show but eyes, nose, mouth and hands -- never wrists.
A single strand of exposed hair will provoke shouting in the street.
I was first plunged into Najaf life a year ago, after the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime freed pilgrims to converge in the hundreds of thousands on Ali's shrine. It was a nightmarish experience in 38oC heat. To juggle a notebook, pen, handbag and cell phone, while constantly having my robes knocked askew by the jostling human lava pouring down the street, was impossible. Yet each tiny slip -- an errant strand of hair, a hem lifted to avoid the mud -- provoked shrieks from disapproving males.
"Haram!" -- it's a sin -- they yelled.
Najaf people could be forgiven for erupting as they did after dec-ades of enforced secularism and oppression of Shiites. It seemed then that everyone was free to make up the rules as they went along -- and the tougher, the better.
Thirteen months later, things have eased somewhat. To visit a tribal leader, or a professor or businessman, the dress code is less stringent. But still, the pressure never lets up in Najaf, and it is applied to all women -- Western and Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, journalist or not.
Perhaps worse than the asphyxiating dress code is to not be acknowledged as a professional, a reporter, a human being.
COLD SHOULDER
Because it is considered inappropriate for a woman to be out on her own and daring to ask questions, the man you're talking to -- bureaucrat, cleric, armed militiaman -- won't talk back to you. He'll look away when you talk to him, and will talk back to the floor, the wall or any man who happens to be with you -- usually your driver.
The woman is supposed to be chaperoned by a mahram, a close male relative, but the driver will do if no one else is available.
Driving around presents its own challenge. It is considered shameful for a man to be seen in the back seat of the car with a woman in front next to the driver. A male Iraqi colleague from Najaf pleaded with me to let him sit in the front as we left a meeting with tribal chiefs who came to the door to say goodbye.
"They will say he is not a man to let a woman sit in the front," he said. I stayed put and told him it's time the men got used to it.
making men sin
These constant clashes over stray hairs are exhausting, but can lead to interesting verbal exchanges. Last year a guard at the Ali shrine told me to cover my hair. I told him to mind his own business. He said it was his duty to "guide" me. But hadn't he sinned simply by looking? No, he explained; I was the sinner, for making him sin.
Once a mullah walking toward me lifted his robe to avoid the mud, so I did the same. Wagging his finger, he yelled: "It's wrong to pull up your abaya!"
So why was it OK for him?
"I am a man of religion, that's different." he replied.
At one point, as I stood outside a mosque, a woman walked up and tried to rearrange my scarf for me. By then I was so frustrated that I lost my temper and tried to pull off her scarf.
She was stunned and appeared apologetic. She pointed to a man standing nearby and said he had told her to do it.
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ¥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this