June 30, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 29,1424

BAGHDAD, June 29: The powerful Hawza, the leading school for Shia Muslim clerics in Iraq, called in a statement published on Sunday, on US-led coalition troops to stop body searches of women by male soldiers.

Several Hawza clerics, including Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged the coalition to “stop the body searches of Iraqi women by its men” in a statement published in the Azzaman daily.

If coalition troops insist on searching women, then female soldiers should carry out the task, it said.

The newspapers said the statement was published after the Hawza, located in Najaf, was given information about the body search of women by coalition troops “pretending to be searching for arms.”

Such searches “do not respect the Sharia nor Iraqi traditions and social values,” it said.

Men in a Shia village in southern Iraq killed six British soldiers in a June 24 armed confrontation after residents were angered at troops searching homes for illegal weapons using dogs, which are considered unclean.—AFP