Democracy?

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, women have faced more restrictions as the formerly secular Iraq becomes religious. Few women leave their hair uncovered in Baghdad. Women’s activists fear women will suffer if the new constitution eventually allows individuals to decide domestic issues according to Islamic religious traditions. Policewomen in Iraq have been told to hand in their guns, in the latest sign of cultural and religious conservatism taking hold in the country, reports the Los Angeles Times’s Tina Susman. Most of the few policewomen who worked in street patrols have been reassigned to desk jobs. Gen. Phillips says when he questioned Iraqi Interior Ministry officials about the diminishing role of women in the force, he was told, “Females are taken care of by men in this country.”