MURDER OF IRAQI FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS' LEADER IN IRAQ

EDM number 781 in 2004-05, proposed by Harry Barnes on 24/02/2005.

That this House unreservedly condemns the murder of Ali Hassan Abd, a leading member of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Union's (IFTU) Oil and Gas Union, who led the way in rebuilding independent unions after the fall of Saddam Hussein and who was assassinated on Friday 18th February by terrorist extremists while returning with his children to his home close to the Al Dorah oil refinery in Baghdad; supports the statement issued by the IFTU Executive Committee, which `condemns this cowardly act and resolves to continue to organise for free, democratic and independent unions' and `pledges to its martyred hero Abu Fahad to carry on organising workers and also for a new and democratic Iraq'; and strongly supports the IFTU's call for the international labour movement to condemn this atrocity against a brave trade unionist, which once again confirms that the so-called resistance is deliberately targeting leaders of the Iraqi labour movement in order to prevent the growth of a new civil society in Iraq, after the brave defiance shown by millions of Iraqis in the last elections.

This motion has been signed by a total of 32 MPs.