By Queen Amidala
Basra, Iraq
A few weeks ago, a 15-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped from the door of her home. The kidnappers were members of Al Sadr Army which is called Al Mahdi. Here's what happened:
At 7:30 a.m. a group of people knocked on the door and the girl answered the door. They were prepared for her to answer the door and immediately kidnapped her. After a minute or two, her mother called on her to see who was on the door. But she got no answer. So she went out to see what was going on. She saw the door wide open and her daughter was no were to be found. The mother called the father. After few minutes they knew their daughter was kidnapped. They immediately started their search for her. They realized they need help from some powerful people; otherwise they would loss their daughter.
The help came from Al Daawa Islamic Party as it indicated its responsibilty for the security in their area. Al-Daawa Party knew the person who kidnapped the girl. They went immediately to his parents house. The kidnapper's parents explained they have the girl. But since the father didn’t approve of his son’s action, he sent the girl to his sister's house. The head of Al Daawa Party asked the parents to bring the girl back to their home in case their son would kidnap her again if she went back to home. The kidnapper's parents obeyed Al Daawa Party and the girl reunited with her mother at the home of Head of Al Daawa Party, where they stayed until the next day.
The kidnapper was from Al Mahdi Army. That's why everyone was very careful not to send the girl back to her house after she was found. You see they were able to take the girl right form under the nose of her parents because they are Christians and the kidnapper has a very powerful background -- if you can call Al Mahdi Army poweful.
Don’t think the girl is safe again. The kidnapper and his parents keep coming back – this time formally – to ask for the girl's hand. The girl lost this year's school and she is currently staying home. Her parents are afraid for hers and the family's safety.
The ironic thing is that the Christian community are divided over this incident. Some Christians think the girl had an affair with the Muslim guy and they were planning to run away just because she was kidnapped, financially poor and lives in poor part of Basrah.
I got angry with them and told them that this is a good opportunity for Basrawi Christians to stick together and not to drift apart like this. I told them if they are going to act like this, then we deserve whatever happen to us in the future. I mean from now on, any girl could be kidnapped on any basis; and we will say “well, she might have had an affair with the guy and wanted to run away with him.” to stop thinking of the consequences of such actions.
This is our Christian community in Basrah. This is how we act when one of us has a problem. We blame the victim to rest our minds.
No comments:
Post a Comment