Posted on 02/08/2004 6:49:12 PM PST by miltonim
Iraqi refugee Guzin Najim thought she'd be safe when she escaped to Australia after her diplomat husband was murdered by Saddam Hussein's brutal secret police and she'd been forced to live, with her children, for three years under house arrest.
But the terror has reached Sydney. Religious fanatics faithful to the murderous tyrant have delivered death threats to her home in the city's south-western suburbs, forcing her once again to flee for her life.
Now Ms Najim, 47, has moved to a secret location to hide from the men who have ordered that her throat be cut for speaking out publicly against Saddam's brutal regime.
"At first, I was very frightened," said Ms Najim at her new home. "I thought, 'How can this happen in Sydney, where life is so peaceful and everyone smiles?' But then I became angry, and I decided that these fanatics will not succeed in intimidating me.
"I will not be silenced. I lived in fear for so long over there. I cannot let that happen again in Australia."
The threats started after the release of the book The Promise, in which author Sandra Lee told of Ms Najim's terrible ordeal at the hands of the Iraqi secret police.
Her husband Ra'ad was taken away from their home in Baghdad by two men and was dumped back, paralysed, fevered and barely able to speak a few hours later. After four days of agony he died, at the age of 48. It was thought he'd been fed rat poison, Saddam's favourite method of assassination.
Ms Najim was held with her two children under house arrest for three years, during which time she was beaten regularly and had her hand broken by her captors. Finally, she escaped to Jordan but, after death threats from those loyal to the Iraqi dictator, she and her children were accepted as refugees by the United Nations and chose to come and live in the relative sanctity of Australia.
But when the book caught the country's attention and she was asked to appear on national TV and radio to talk about her ordeal, the cold chill of religious fanaticism suddenly arrived on her Sydney doorstep.
She received two death threats over the intercom of her home, and another written death threat was slid under her front door. Bankstown police are investigating the threats and studying the letter.
"They wrote that I am out of Islam and I must be killed," Ms Najim said.
"It said that I support Americans.
"It was such a shock that this happened in Australia. But then I became very depressed. I didn't eat for two days. I started to think that I had brought my children to safety to this country, and now I am ready to die. I felt tired of it all and wanted to sleep and escape from reality.
"But then I became very angry. Even if they are determined to kill me, I will not stop talking. I will never change my mind."
In her new home with her son Mohammed, 23, and daughter Lina, 28, living nearby, Ms Najim is trying hard to rebuild her life.
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