| Strange Famous |
11-20-2004 07:09 AM |
The probable murder of Margaret Hassan
Whoever is responsible for this, what they have done is contary to any of their stated aims.
They claim to represent Iraqi's, but they have made all Iraqi's ashamed.
They have made the situation far worse for ordinary Iraqi people... as the situation deteroiates and humaniterian crisis looms, what aid agency would stay to help when they risk kidnap and murder?
Margaret Hassan was not only against the occupation, she gave the majority of her life to helping and working for the Iraqi people - to be killed by those claiming to represent Iraq is disgusting and tragic. Those responsible shall never be forgiven, I hpe that their organisation and the individuals responsible within it are destroyed, are no longer existing.
I know that people are dying in Iraq in every day, and the untimely death of any one person should not be any more tragic than another - but this really is a terrible crime, it has drastically reduced the sympathy that any people can feel for the resistance/insurgents as a whole.
If anyone doesnt know who she was, here is a link to one of many stories:
Quote:
Last Updated: Wednesday, 17 November, 2004, 16:33 GMT
Iraqis voice revulsion over killing
By Richard Galpin
BBC News, Baghdad
The people on the streets of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, are filled with revulsion at the apparent murder of the aid worker Margaret Hassan.
Local television stations and Arabic satellite channels began broadcasting the news on Tuesday night.
Billboards in Baghdad had called for Mrs Hassan's release
Iraqis we spoke to condemned the brutal killing, describing it as a crime against humanity.
"She devoted her life to serve the Iraqi people and help them in difficult times," said Ali Najem a resident of central Baghdad.
He said: "We considered her to be an Iraqi citizen. The criminals who did this want to spoil the image of Iraq and spoil the efforts now under way to hold elections."
Inside a dingy room nearby, a large family sits around the television. Among them is 14-year-old Iman Ahmed.
She should be at school but her mother has told her to stay at home because she fears she could be kidnapped if she walks the city streets.
According to Iman, Mrs Hassan was a well-known figure in the capital and other parts of the country.
"Did Margaret come here with the American soldiers to fight? No "
Iman Ahmed
She says: "Did Margaret come here with the American soldiers to fight? No, she came here to help the Iraqi people. Many people liked her because she helped us."
Across the road, in a run-down building housing a large electricity transformer, elderly Abu Akram folds up his prayer-mat and comes to speak to us.
He is disgusted by the unknown gang of gunmen who abducted Mrs Hassan four weeks ago as she was being driven to work in the capital.
He says: "The people who did this are not in any way related to Islam because Islam respects women. Everyone has to work together to fight these terrorists."
As we return to our office, we meet Dr Kaydar Al-Chalabi, the director of a Baghdad hospital which specialises in spinal injuries.
Civilian deaths
He spent the past 15 months working with Mrs Hassan who, through her aid agency Care International, rebuilt his hospital which was looted after the war and then badly damaged in a bombing.
He says: "If Margaret Hassan is dead, it really is a great loss not just for her family but for the whole of Iraq.
"What she offered to Iraq was beyond imagination, she really felt the suffering of the people.
"She was not just director of Care International, she ran everywhere she was needed - whether it was a patient, a child, a hospital, or a water purification project, she was the first there with her staff," he added.
But amid the sorrow here, some people also wanted to remind us of the daily death toll of innocent Iraqi civilians caught up in the fighting and bombings across the country.
Thousands have died since the invasion in March last year, but their deaths largely go unreported by the international media.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4020159.stm
Quote:
Profile: Margaret Hassan
Mrs Hassan warned that war in Iraq could cause a humanitarian crisis
Dublin-born charity worker Margaret Hassan moved to Iraq 30 years ago, and began working for Care International soon after it began operations there in 1991.
When she was kidnapped, she had been head of the charity's operations in the country for some 12 years.
Married to an Iraqi, Mrs Hassan has Irish, British and Iraqi nationality.
Her friend Felicity Arbuthnot, a film-maker who has travelled to Iraq to document Mrs Hassan's work, described her as "an extraordinary woman".
"She is one of those slender people with a spine of steel," she said.
"She stayed there through the 1991 war, the bombings last year, all the horrors of the embargo.
"She has tremendous presence. If there is anybody who can build a rapport with whoever these people are, she will," Ms Arbuthnot said.
Everywhere she went, people just beamed
Film-maker Felicity Arbuthnot
She said she had once travelled with Mrs Hassan to a water sanitation plant in a poor area of Iraq and seen her effect on the local people she was helping.
"A crowd gathered and tiny children rushed up and threw their arms round her knees, saying, 'Madam Margaret, Madam Margaret,' and everywhere she went, people just beamed.
"She was so loved and everybody was so open with her and this is what makes it so extraordinary."
Robert Glasser, chief executive of Care Australia, said: "It is important to note that she has been providing humanitarian relief to the most needy Iraqis in a professional career spanning more than 25 years.
"She has been on the ground helping the poor in Iraq for over 25 years."
Humanitarian warning
Mrs Hassan warned MPs shortly before last year's war that Iraq could face a humanitarian catastrophe in the event of a conflict.
She said UN sanctions had left the Iraqi people in a worse situation than they had been at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.
"The Iraqi people are already living through a terrible emergency," she told a House of Commons briefing.
"They do not have the resources to withstand an additional crisis brought about by military action."
We call for whoever is holding her hostage to think of her family and the good work she is doing in Iraq
Ideel Jafferi, Islamic Relief
Mrs Hassan chose to stay in Iraq during the war, and told the Newcastle Journal on the eve of the conflict that she was "sad" Britain was taking part.
She added she did not fear being targeted in revenge attacks by Iraqis.
Medical aid
International relief and development charity Islamic Relief, based in Birmingham, joined calls for Mrs Hassan's safe release.
She spoke to its members about Iraq in 2002, before the war, describing how a formerly prosperous nation had been systematically reduced to poverty.
Islamic Relief spokesman Ideel Jafferi said staff prayed for her after her kidnap.
Care International is the world's largest humanitarian relief agency, with a presence in 72 countries.
It has focused efforts in Iraq since the war on providing emergency relief and medical aid, and restoring access to clean water.
More than 30 staff, all Iraqis, work in its Baghdad office.
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