Hi Wolfgang, thanks for the link to the Guardian article.

Lepus,

In your mail you lift the following from that Guardian Article:

"Hania Mufti, the group's (Human Rights Watch) London director, said the decree was repealed months after it was imposed. 'The decree was introduced at a specific time after the end of the Iran-Iraq war when soldiers coming back from the front found their women had had sexual relations with other men, mainly Egyptian workers. Lots of the Egyptians were killed. The decree was an amnesty for these people and was repealed within months.'"

In my post responding to Kevin's request for sources, I indicated that I was aware of the repeal of this decree on the part of the Revolutionary Command Council (Saddam Hussein). That was why I also quoted as a source the Reuters Report on the UNHCR Conference in Cuba.

If what was reported in the Guardian was true then the repeal would have been in effect from late 1990, or early 1991. Reports exist dating the time of the repeal to 1997, the UNHCR report states that the practice is still in force in Iraq and that was dated 2000.

So I suppose the best thing to do is to pick which ever suits your particular point of view and blithely ignore the rest.