The Iraqi Finance Ministry said on Sunday that it had fired a ministry employee who tried in March to evict a Sunni Arab widow and her family from their home in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of western Baghdad. The woman refused to move and was shot dead the day after being visited by two Shiite men identifying themselves as Finance Ministry guards.
The ministry said in a written statement released to the New York Times that the employee had tried to evict the widow, Suaada Saadoun, 49, without getting official permission from the ministry.
The ministry did not name the employee, but Saadoun's relatives and neighbors said after her death on March 28 that the ministry official pushing for the eviction was named Ali Jezairi.
The statement said Finance Minister Bayan Jabr, a conservative Shiite, had ordered an investigation after reading about the case in an article published in the Times on March 30. The article documented Saadoun's efforts to avoid being evicted from her home and her subsequent murder.
The statement by the Finance Ministry represented the first time an Iraqi government body had announced that it was punishing someone for attempting an illegal eviction. But the ministry failed to address the killing of Saadoun.
Sectarian displacement has become widespread across Iraq, with Shiite and Sunni militias trying to rid neighborhoods in Baghdad and other cities of members of the rival sect.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS