Adonis Diaries

World Peace Award: Who is this Iraqi woman Hanaa Adour?

First, what is this World Peace Award? World Peace Organization was established in 1891. In 1968, it was headed by Irish leader Shon MacBride who confronted the proliferation of nuclear arms and demanded the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Shon received Nobel Prize for Peace in 1974 and died in 1988.  In honor of Shon MacBride, the award is made in his name “The Shon MacBride World Peace Award”.

This is the first year that an Arabic individual receives the award: She is the Iraqi civil activist Hanaa Adour, nicknamed “Iraqi Mother Theresa” and the “Icon of Iraqi civil movement”, and she is ready to receive the award on December 29.  Adour, born in Basra 1946, joined early on progressive movements in the late 50’s. She participated in the “Iraqi Women Association”, an extension of the Iraqi Communist Party, until the year 2000.

In the 60’s, after a bloody persecution of the Communist Party, Adour immigrated. In the early 70’s, Adour resumed her activities by representing Iraqi Women Association as Secretary of World Democratic Women Union, based in East Germany for 10 years. Adour returned in 1985 and settled in the Northern Kurdistan region, and spent 3 years in these mountainous region by the borders of Iraq and Iran.  Adour returned one more time to Kurdistan between 1996-2003.

As Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown by the US invasion, Adour settled in Baghdad in 2003. In June 5, 2011, She confronted Nouri Maliki PM during a conference for human rights and demanded that the Prime Minister apologize for distorting the facts about four Iraqi civil activists who were detained and tortured.

Adour brought a civil suit on the eldest deputy in the Parliament for conducting closed sessions and after the Iraqi Supreme Court declared open sessions illegal. Adour won the case on December 24.

The interviewer Fadel al Nashmy asked Adour: “How many civil organizations are there in Iraq?” She replied: “There are 250 legal organizations and thousands working without license.”

Nashmy: “There are rumors that you are the principal recipient of donations and that you are responsible for distributing the allocation of money to the various civil organizations…” Hanaa Adour said: “You will be surprised of the little money we are function with.  Many civil associations are shops and they close down as money stops to come. We disseminate our reports every year and our sources are transparent. There are plenty of corruptions in this State, but our activism is constantly on the look-out, and we mean to reducing civil corruptions in the government institutions.”

Note: This post was inspired by a piece in the Lebanese daily Al Nahar: Fadel al Nashmy (Bagdad) conducted an interview with Adour after she received the award.