Kathy Kelly #04971-045
FPC Pekin
PO Box 5000
Pekin, IL 61555-5000

Jerome Zawada, OFM #04995-045
FPC Oxford, P.O. Box 1085
Oxford, WI, 53952

by Jo Wilding

“I had a letter from some women students in one of the colleges,” Layla said. “They are being threatened with suspension if they do not wear a veil. There are also some women students in the Fine Art College. They have had threats and been stopped from making music and singing and putting on theatre shows. They want to stop them making any art unless it is religious.”

There’s a billboard near one of the colleges advertising the opinion that veils make you beautiful and respectable. Unfortunately there are some who prefer a more direct method of promoting veils. I’ve no objection whatsoever to veils. My disagreement, and I think I can say Layla’s and that of the young women who contact her, is with the attempt to force them, the denial of their right to choose.

Supporters of Moqtada Al-Sadr have threatened Layla, the Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq which she directs and the Workers’ Communist Party which supports the organisation, as well as individual women, other women’s groups and labour organisations. The threats were reported to, and ignored by, the CPA. The recent suspension of the Al-Hawza newspaper came in response to the extension of threats to the Americans.