CURFEWS ARE A WAY OF LIFE IN IRAQ

The untold stories about life in Iraq continue to unfold while all the time the media in the United States looks the other way.

We reported on the electricity and gasoline shortages in a post yesterday on this blog, and today Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail are reporting on how curfews have become a way of life for Iraqi citizens living in Baquba.

Someday, hopefully, the American media will shed their "Iraq Fatigue" and again begin telling the American public the truth about Iraq.

However, until that happens we will continue to bring readers of this blog the inside story on life inside of Iraq.

By Bill Corcoran, editor and host of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog dedicated to telling the truth about Iraq and Afghanistan sans White House filters.



IRAQ: Under Curfew, This Is No Life

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40905

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*BAQUBA, Jan 24 (IPS)

- Continuing curfew has brought normal life to a standstill in Baquba, capital of the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad.Through nearly three decades of rule under Saddam Hussein, Iraqis witnessed only two curfews; for the census in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, curfews are commonplace, enforced whenever the Iraqi government and U.S. military fail to control the situation on the ground. A curfew means all public utilities and services cease.

Life becomes frozen, and nobody is able to get to work. Factories and other utilities close, the wheel of the economy and development stops. "When the government imposes a curfew it does not think of those who have no salary," 39-year-old labourer Adnan al-Khazraji told IPS.

"A very large number of people like me rely on daily income for their living. On the contrary, government employees feel safe whether there is a curfew or not because at the end of a month they receive the salary regardless of stoppage of work." Members of the government and parliament receive big salaries, "and therefore they forget poor people at such times," Khazraji added. Not just economically, curfews have taken their toll psychologically as well.

In Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, there has been a curfew every Friday since 2005. "I feel imprisoned when I have to keep to my home," Salma Jabr, a resident of the city told IPS. "It is the only holiday that we have to do things like visits, shopping, travelling."

Click on link above to read full account of life under curfew in Iraq.