Exiled Cleric Returns Home To Call For Free Islamic State (Iraq)

Thousands of Shia Muslims line the road to Basra to greet religious leader who was jailed and tortured by Saddam

The most prominent leader among Iraq's majority Shia Muslims yesterday crossed into the country for the first time after 23 years of exile and told an ecstatic rally of up to 100,000 supporters that Iraq must have a "totally independent" government.

The venerated cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim – jailed and tortured in the 1970s for opposing Saddam Hussein – arrived in Basra on the first leg of a journey that will end with what is expected to be a tumultuous welcome tomorrow here in his home base of Najaf, the city most sacred to Shia Muslims.

After thousands of supporters lined the 12-mile road from the Iranian border to Basra, throwing flowers and trying to touch his car, the 63-year-old cleric, addressing a packed stadium in the city, was several times interrupted with chants of: "Hakim, Hakim, go, go, we are your soldiers of liberation" and "Yes to Islam, no to Saddam". At several points in the road the cleric, wearing a black turban, wound down the window and waved at the welcoming crowd.

Ayatollah Hakim, the last politically prominent exile to return to Iraq, is leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the five groupings represented on the committee steering the process to a transitional government. Many Shias see him as the best hope of reversing the suppression of their political aspirations throughout Saddam's period in power.

He told the rally that the new government "must be chosen by Iraqis", and added: "We will not accept a government that is imposed on us. We have gone such a long way in such hard times, we are now on the road to security and stability. This is a jihad [holy war] of reconstruction after the destruction of the oppressors. This must be a march for independence ... We used to say yes to freedom, now we say yes, yes to independence."

Ayatollah Hakim has sought to play down fears about his links to the anti-Saddam – and previously Iranian-based – Badr Brigade units, stressing that he is not seeking to remake Iraq in the image of Iran's Islamic republic. He also went out of his way yesterday to declare that: "We don't want an extremist Islam", adding that he sought "an Islam of independence, justice and freedom".

The security issue, he went on, "is the first one we will tackle ... We are ready to establish security for all Iraqis if allied forces allow us and do not interfere in Iraq's affairs."

At Najaf, which is already festooned with pictures of Ayatollah Hakim and green Shia flags emblazoned with quotations from the Koran in preparation for his arrival tomorrow, the cleric will first visit the holy tomb of the 7th-century Ali ibn Abu Talib, the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, whom Shias regard as his legitimate successor. The ayatollah will then plunge into a hectic series of meetings with local and national religious, political and tribal leaders.

The holy city, which like every other has been disfigured by uncollected garbage since the war, has been specially cleaned up in an operation urged on local people by SCIRI and what remains of the pre-war municipal authority here.

There are fears in Najaf that an attempt could be made on the ayatollah's life by remnants of Fedayeen fighters still loyal to Saddam Hussein, or by the lawless armed gangs who, many residents repeatedly complain, roam the city, particularly at night. But the local leader of SCIRI, giving his name only as Haji Hassan, said yesterday at the group's headquarters in a former Baathist municipal office (attacked by Badr units with rocket-propelled grenades only three years ago): "We have taken careful precautions to protect him. The people of Najaf are his own people, and they will also protect him."

Residents of this city, obsessed by politics as well as by religion, spoke of their hopes that Ayatollah Hakim would help to usher in a stable Iraqi state, no longer deformed by tribal ethnic rivalries. However, many still refused to be named for fear of reprisals by guerrillas still loyal to Saddam Hussein.

While many support the Ayatollah's aspiration for an Islamic state, opinion differs on what form this should take. One man, Ayad Abdul Wahad, said he wanted a fundamentalist regime like Iran's, but several others said they would prefer a moderate democratic Islamist state on the model of Turkey.

Yet another, a 35-year-old law student Sabah Hanoudi, denied entry to his university at Kufa for many years for refusing to join the Baathist party, said Iraq should be a "civilised, high-technology state" like some of the emirates in the Gulf.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030510-052103-9190r

Shiite leader, sports return to Iraq

By Beth Potter
From the International Desk
Published 5/10/2003 6:05 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 10 (UPI) -- The cleric head of a prominent Shiite Muslim group opposed to the former Iraqi regime returned to Iraq after 23 years of exile in Iran Saturday, greeting thousands of cheering followers in southern Iraq with a call for Islamic unity and Iraqi independence.

U.S. officials with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the Pentagon-backed civil authority, launched a return of sorts of its own on Saturday. They announced two Iraqi soccer stars -- near-heroes in Iraqi society -- will come back to take over leadership of the International Olympic Committee. The previous head was Saddam Hussein's son Uday, whose vicious streak as well as playboy reputation are slowly emerging in captured documents.

Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, 68, told supporters of his Iran-backed group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, expects to travel north to the holy Iraqi city of Najaf in coming days. Wherever he goes the United States and Britain are likely to be watching closely -- al-Hakim's motives and goals are as yet unclear with regard to an interim Iraqi government and its Western supporters.

In Basra Saturday his welcome was enthusiastic. Al Jazeera television estimated the crowd that jammed a stadium there at 100,000.

"We Muslims have to live together," the British Broadcasting Corp. quoted al-Hakim as saying. "We have to help each other stand together against imperialism. We want an independent government. We refuse imposed government."

About 60 percent of Iraq's population of some 24 million are Shiite Muslim, but Saddam's regime and his ruling Baathist Party were dominated by Sunni Muslims who suppressed the expression of the Shiite faction of Islam. Al-Hakim left Iraq at the start of its war with Iran, an Islamic state of Shiite Muslims. SCIRI since has developed its own militia and Washington has asked Tehran not to let them or other Iranian influences interfere in Iraq.

SCIRI boycotted the first meeting in April of Iranian opposition groups hosted by the United States. It did send delegates to a second meeting held mid-month in Baghdad, however.

Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital, U.S. representatives of ORHA said Ahmed Ravhi and Raad Hmoudi, two of Iraq's most popular soccer players, accepted the position of running the Olympic Committee. One official told United Press International the interim authority wants to rebuild Iraq's sports facilities for all Iraq's people instead of the select few who enjoyed them under Saddam. ORHA appears to view soccer -- or football, as it is called in Iraq and most other countries -- as an important element in Iraq's reconstruction with its ability to entertain, unify and provide a healthy outlet for families.

When asked how Iraqis viewed Ravhi, the leading Arab player in 1988, 25-year-old Ali Amin said he was more than a hero, more than a king: "He's too famous (for those descriptions). He has a great history with the Iraqi people."

Hmoudi, the other soccer star, has been in Qatar for the last several years. He has reportedly agreed to return to his homeland.

"It will be a better committee when Ravhi and Hmoudi return to run it," declared another recently returned Iraqi exile, 48-year-old Viad Cattan.

Indeed, it appears Uday Hussein ran the National Olympic Committee as a front for nightclubs, racetracks and other entertainment venues, an ORHA official who asked not to be named told UPI. He owned his own sporting-goods company that exported shoes and sport clothing around the world for cash; ORHA also called him the owner Al-Rashid, of one of Iraq's most prominent banks.

"As we're learning more day by day, Uday's abusive tactics extended to the athletes," said the senior OHRA official. "His ugly reign was a dark shadow over Olympic sports."

U.S. military officials in Baghdad said they filled a 5-ton truck with documents detailing what they described as Uday's police-state tactics and the heavy Iraqi military influence in his Olympic Committee leadership. They refused to discuss details of the documents, saying they had yet to evaluate them. But rumors of Uday's beatings of athletes who lost matches and other abuse have circulated in sports circles for years.Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International

That UPI article has him as 68. But your article says 63, as does this little bit of bio . . .

http://www.sciri.btinternet.co.uk/English/About_Us/Sayed/sayed.html

AYATOLLAH SAYED
MOHAMMED BAQIR AL-HAKIM

Ayatollah Sayed Mohamad Baqir Al-Hakim, was born in 1939, is the son of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhsin AI-Hakim (who was the spiritual leader for the Shia world in the period 1955-1970).
The Al-Hakim family is a well known religious Iraqi family loved and respected by millions of Shia Muslims in Iraq and throughout the Muslim world. Sayed Al-Hakim, was born, brought up and studied religion in Najaf, Iraq (the holy city for Shia in the world). He was a distinguished scholar and the personal religious/political representative of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhsin AI-Hakim in Iraq.
Sayed Al-Hakim was a co-founder of the Islamic political movement in Iraq established in the late fifties, along with the late distinguished leader Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr and other scholars. Sayed Al-Hakim maintained a close association with Ayatollah Al-Sadr up to the martyrdom of Ayatollah Al-Sadr in 1980. In 1972 Sayed Al-Hakim was arrested and tortured by the Bathist regime. He was released after a wide spread popular pressure on the regime. In 1977 he was re-arrested following the people's uprising in Feb. 1977 in Najaf, and immediately sentenced to life imprisonment by special court without any trial. He was released in July 1979 following huge public pressure on the regime.
Sayed Al-Hakim's association with Ayatollah Al-Sadr continued after his release in 1979 when Ayatollah Al-Sadr was put under house arrest. At this point Sayed Al-Hakim assumed the responsibility of conducting clandestine contact with Ayatollah Al-Sadr until April 1980 when Ayatollah Al-Sadr was murdered by Saddam's regime. Sayed Al- Hakim then decided to leave Iraq in 1980 shortly after the eruption of war between Iraq and Iran. He played a prominent role in the deliberations leading to the establishment of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI) in November 1982.
Saddam's regime reacted violently to Sayed Al-Hakim's prominent political activity of SCIRI and arrested 125 members of his family in 1983. Subsequently 18 members of his family were executed. Despite this ordeal and the assassination of his brother Sayed Mahdi Al-Hakim in Sudan Jan. 1988, Sayed Al-Hakim continued his political activities against Saddam's regime. In addition to his political activities, Sayed Al-Hakim is a leading member of several Islamic associations. He is also the author of many books on Islamic and political thoughts.

http://www.sciri.btinternet.co.uk/English/Saddam_Crimes/saddam_crimes.html

Saddam's Crimes

The repressive violence of Saddam's regime is the norm and not something used by the authorities in exceptional circumstances as it is in many countries. The repression, imprisonment, torture, deportation, assassination, and execution are strategies followed by Saddam's regime in dealing with Iraqi people. The strategy of Saddam's regime in dealing with neighbouring countries are arrogance and aggression.
These strategies results from the fair that Saddam's regime is a dictatorship which lacks constitutional legitimacy and real popular base inside the country.
Observers have noticed since the 17-30 July 1968 coup of Bath Party the increase in numbers of the prisons and the oppressive and intelligence apparatus. They have noticed also hundreds of decrees issued by Saddam or the Revolutionary Command Council which sentence to death these who carry on against the regime such writing slogans or delivering speeches or even criticizing the regime or the president.
Saddam's regime crimes are countless and endless. However the following are few examples of these crimes:

The killing of Sunni religious leaders such as Abdul Aziz Al Badri the Imam of Dragh district mosque in Baghdad in 1969, Al Shaikh Nadhum Al Asi from Ubaid tribe in Northern Iraq, Al Shiakh Al Shahrazori, Al Shaikh Umar Shaqlawa, Al Shiakh Rami Al Kirkukly, Al Shiakh Mohamad Shafeeq Al Badri, Abdul Ghani Shindala.

The arrest of hundreds of Iraqi Islamic activists and the execution of five religious leaders in 1974.

The arrest of thousand of religious people who rose up against the regime and the killing of hundreds of them in the popular uprising of 1977 in which Ayatollah Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim the leader of SCIRI was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The arrest, torture and executions of tens of religious scholars and Islamic activists in such as Qasim Shubbar, Qasim Al Mubarqaa in 1979.

The arrest, torture and execution of Ayatollah Mohamad baqir Al Sadr and his sistre Amina Al Sadr (Bint Al Huda) in 1980.

The war against Iran in 1980 in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, and many doubles of that number were handicapped or missed.

The arrest of 90 members of Al Hakim family and the execution of 16 members of that family in 1983 to put pressure on Ayatollah Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim to stop his struggle against Saddam's regime.

Using chemical weapons in the North and the South the details of which are below.

The occupation of Kuwait which resulted in killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and injuring many doubles of that number in addition to the destruction of Iraq.

The assassination of many opposition figures outside Iraq such Haj Sahal Al Salman in UAE in 1981, Sami Mahdi and Ni'ma Mohamad in Pakistan in 1987, Sayed Mahdi Al Hakim in Sudan in 1988, and Shaikh Talib Al Suhail in Lebanon in 1994.

The execution of 21 Bath Party leaders in 1979 in Iraq , the assassination of Hardan Al Tikriti former defence Minister in Kuwait in 1973, and the former Prime- Minister Abdul Razzaq Al naef in London 1978.

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