Jezebel: Basra

Anne Frank Was A Bossy BFF • Honor Killings Rise In Southern Iraqi City

Maria — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST

• In her book My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank Jacqueline Van Maarsen, Anne Frank's best friend, claims that the noted diarist and Holocaust victim was an extroverted girl who made bossy demands on their friendship. • The Iranian government will set up marriage bureaus to help Iranians find suitable husbands and wives and encourage banks to give out loans for weddings. • To mark World AIDS Day, photographer Kalpesh Lathigra photographs and meets with prostitutes (many of them forced or "tricked" into the profession) of India's hidden sex trade. • More »

Thanks To Your Guys, A Few Brave Women May Get Out Of Basra

Moe — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Earlier this week we relayed the tragic story of Rand Abdel-Qader, the Basra teenager beaten to death by her father for nursing a crush on a British soldier, an act of "honor killing" for which he not only went unpunished by the police but went on to track down someone to murder his wife as well, for the sins of bestowing on his daughter the lustful genes responsible for her crush and attempting to flee the same fate with the help of a fledgling women's rights organization. Now, usually when we tell you one of these stories, you get all "OH! Stabby! And there's nothing we can do!!" But in this case, there was something you could do, because the women's rights organization, tiny and unbanked though it may be, needs help getting the fuck out of Basra. So we put in a few emails and chatted up an enormously sweet (and hot) Baghdad-based journalist named Afif Sarhan and figured out a way to get them some money. Thanks to the magic of PayPal, we just sent over an initial installment $1,700! I've named the donors and offered some praise for good dudes after the jump. More »

Mom Who Fled Her Honor Killing Husband In Basra Shot Down On Street; How You Can Help

Moe — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:30:00 EDT

For weeks the story of the lovelorn Basra teenager who was beaten to death by her father and brothers in a crime met with high-fives and applause by the local law enforcement authorities has…well, gone relatively unnoticed in the Western press, perhaps because it's so fucking depressing. And now it's over. Layla Hussein, the heartbroken mother who fled her husband over the killing — unsurprisingly he blamed his wife's genes for his daughter's sins, because his side of the family was clearly so fucking pure — is dead. After spending the past few weeks hopping among safe houses, she was assassinated in a drive-by shooting as she got out of a car to meet someone who was supposed to help smuggle her to Jordan. Now the anonymous women's rights aid agency that attempted to smuggle Leila out of the country is trying to smuggle itself — but they're out of money. We contacted the Guardian to see whether, um, we might redirect some of the week's drinking funds to a more worthwhile cause? More »

Welcome To Basra, Where Beating Your Daughter To Death Gets You High-Fived By Cops

Moe — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:00:00 EDT

There are no photos of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader or "Paul," the British soldier she fell in love with, so this will have to do, as it's an image we have probably all probably allowed to enter our hippocampuses when the teenage infatuation reaches such a crescendo it starts to seem impossible that it won't end tragically — and suffice it to say, this post is tragic enough. Two months ago Abdel-Qader, an English speaking student from Basra, was beaten to death by her father Ali and brothers after she talked to "Paul" in public one day, and now, thanks to the Guardian we know that her father not only feels zero remorse and has the full support of the Basra police and social norms — "some honor killings are impossible not to commit," after all — he blames his wife's "bad genes" for causing his daughter to fall in love with a foreigner. (Bad genes! What, you thought the Shias believed in intelligent design?) More »

Barack Obama Would Rather Be Shooting Dunks And Fathering Illegitimate Children. (Duh!)

Moe — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EDT

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In a telling interview with the erudite Philadelphia radio program The Angelo Cataldi Show, Barack Obama said he would rather be Dr. J than president. (Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, gave some speech comparing herself to Rocky Balboa while wearing a fuchsia blazer.) Feminist hero Heidi Montag of The Hills announced her endorsement of John McCain, and her on-again boyfriend Spencer Pratt immediately shot back that he didn't think "anyone cares who Heidi Montag votes for." Well shit, Spencer, you know better than anyone that at least as many people care about Heidi's political stances as the fact that John McCain thinks Muqtada al Sadr is the one who came begging for a ceasefire, and that's way more than the number of people who care about the release of some 2003 Bush Administration memo authorizing torture-esque torture strategies, and even that is wayyyy more than the number of people who will sit still long enough to watch Errol Morris' new movie so...where was I? OMG EVILDOERS TRIED TO BLOW UP DISNEYLAND! Glamocracy's Megan and I are soooooo glad they didn't succeed. More »

10 Things Not To Feel Guilty About Tonight!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

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Women! I think we can all agree we are guilty enough already! That's why, in lieu of the usual evening Jezebel news roundup, we're presenting you with ten things NOT to worry your head over. Read, and go back to feeling bad about carbs!