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MADRE, An International Women's Human Rights Organization

Support Iraqi Women:
MADRE Calls for International Protection on Third Anniversary of US Invasion

INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE

March 19, 2006—New York—On the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, reiterates our call for the deployment of a United Nations-led peacekeeping force and an immediate end to the US occupation. As the crisis in Iraq intensifies, women and their families in Iraq face an urgent need for security, functional government, and the provision of basic services within a human rights framework.

Read MADRE's statement, Iraq Violence Demands UN Response: MADRE Calls for International Peacekeepers

Available for interviews on MADRE's statement and women's human rights in Iraq:

Yifat Susskind, MADRE's Communications Director, was born and raised in Israel and was active in the Israeli women's peace movement for several years before joining MADRE in 1997. Her critical analysis of US foreign policy and women's human rights in the Middle East and other parts of the world has appeared in online and print publications such as TomPaine.com, Foreign Policy in Focus, and The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, published by the Feminist Press in 2004. Ms. Susskind has also been featured as a commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and BBC Radio. She is the author of a book on US foreign policy and women's human rights and a report on violence against women in Iraq, both forthcoming.

Houzan Mahmoud is the UK representative of MADRE's sister organization, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), and Editor in Chief of Equal Rights Now!, a publication of OWFI. Ms. Mahmoud speaks internationally on behalf of OWFI about the impact of the US occupation and the rise in Islamic fundamentalism on women's human rights and women's daily lives. As of late, she has focused in particular on the escalation of sectarian violence, Iraq's fraudulent political process, and the role of Iraq's progressive, secular movement in articulating human rights-based alternatives for Iraq's future. Her analysis has been published by The Guardian and The Independent, and she has been a featured commentator on BBC, CNN, and other international media outlets. Ms. Mahmoud is based in London and will be in New York for speaking engagements during the anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.