Iraqi Women’s Activist Rebuffs U.S. Claims of a Freer Iraq: "This Is Not a Democratic Country" (video)

Democracy Now! with video (13:20)and transcript:

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, joins us to discuss the impact of the nearly nine-year U.S. occupation, particularly on Iraqi women. "The Iraqi cities are now much more destroyed than they were, I would say, like five years ago," Mohammed says. "In the same time, we have turned to a society of 99 percent poor and 1 percent rich, due to the policies that were imposed in Iraq." Mohammed decries the repression of Iraqi protesters that joined the Arab Spring in a February 25th action. "The women are the biggest loser in all of this. We went to the Iraqi squares. We demonstrated. The Arab Spring was there very strongly but got oppressed in ways that were new to Iraqi people. Anti-riot police of the American style was something that we witnessed there... This is not a democratic country." [includes rush transcript]