When I first met Yanar Mohammed in 2003, she was holding a megaphone and leading a women’s rally in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, standing in the shadow of a pedestal where a statue of Saddam Hussein had stood until U.S. tanks dragged it to the ground a few weeks earlier.  With a head of uncovered dark curls and a raised fist, she led chants demanding improved security and equal civil rights for women.

Condemn another hideous stoning of an 11 years old girl in Kurdistan 

Sara Jaffar Nimat is an 11-year-old girl from the town of Khanaqin in Iraqi Kurdistan. She was murdered on the 3rd August. 

The painful, degrading and horrific killing of Sara is another outrageous crime against young girls and women in Kurdistan. Sara was only in fifth grade at school. Loved by her friends, they played together on the night she was killed.  Sara’s body was found in a nearby empty building. It had been hit by bricks, stones, and then burnt. There is not much information yet about who committed such a barbaric crime against an innocent young girl.