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Iraqi Network for Social Media ( INSM)

Apr 5, 2011

Money Talks (4): The Unspoken Discrimination

Some of the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani students are sponsored and paid all the tuition fees necessary. Those who are sponsored are not required to get more than 2.0 GPA. So these students have the best chance to pass classes easily without bothering even to study.

However, sponsorships have become an open gate for political and ethnic discrimination at AUI-S.

Political Discrimination:
Faruq Mala Mustafa, Owner of Asia
Cell company with a large number of
sponsored students at AUI-S














Most of the sponsored students by the Kurdish businessmen and politicians are one of these:
1-      Son, daughter or close relative of a politician from the ruling parties
2-      Someone who has connections in the ruling parties
3-      A student in need for financial aid
While the first two groups comprise the majority of the students sponsored by Kurdish businessmen and politicians, they are always vulnerable to all sorts of political pressure. The best example for this is the last incident of some sponsored student being threatened with cutting their financial aid if participated in the demonstrations against corruption and despotism at Sera Liberation Square. {Student Eye keeps the name of 
the name of students anonymous}


Logos of the Two ruling Kurdish parties 
















Looking at the student body at AUI-S, one can easily track the large number of sons, daughters and relatives of politicians from the ruling parties in Kurdistan. This large number of students from the ruling parties and families has made serious problems for the university. {Student Eye has eyewitnesses and evidence to prove 
this}

Ethnic Discrimination:

Ethnic discrimination reached its peak when the American Embassy in Baghdad announced a scholarship only for non-Kurdish students. After publishing the news on Student Eye, U.S. embassy removed the press release on its website and changes the naming from "non-Kurdish students" to "student from outside KRG region". While the naming matters a lot in such a situation, the result is the same: The scholarships are given based on the ethnicity of the students. 

On the other hand, in a visit to the Yazidi religious leadership in Shekhan (25 km north to Mosul) AUI-S has promised Baba Shekh, a Yazidi religious leader, to grant Yazidis scholarships due to "humanitarian 
circumstance of the Yazidis".

The fact that most of the Arab students are sponsored by one of their political leaders is another problem. Some of the Kurdish students, who don't understand how the sponsorship works, have political and ethnic explanations for that. While some unknowingly accuse the administration, others blame Kurdish political leadership for that. 

Some students ask about the reasons why most of the Arab students are either sponsored or on scholarship program. The answer to this question is that AUI-S opened its gates in the past for political interference in the past and has not closed that gate now. 
Allawi                         Hashmi                           Abdulmahdi 
 
 
Adil Abdul Mahdi, Tariq al Hashimi and Ayad Allawi are among Iraqi politicians who have sponsored large numbers of Arab students at AUI-S. 


Now let's see who has lost the opportunity to study at AUI-S because of this unspoken discrimination at AUI-S.

(I.H) a brilliant student with the highest grade in Baccalaureate exam couldn't join AUI-S because he was asked to pay $3000 per year. This brilliant but financially inadequate student loses the opportunity to study at AUI-S while students with questionable morality are accepted for mere political and financial connections.
The examples we have given are only a few of what have in hand. The sponsorship program has in fat become an open gate for political and ethnic discrimination. While the university can blame Iraqi and Kurdish politicians for this, it shares the responsibility of not acting to end this unspoken discrimination.




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21 Comments: on "Money Talks (4): The Unspoken Discrimination"

Mark G said...

Good work. This goes hand in hand with the issue of exorbitant salaries for top officials at AUI-S. Administrators and even faculty are essentially 'bought off' to keep quiet about injustice, unfairness and corruption at the university. Bought off by the shadowy political powers behind the scenes who finance the operations with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Anonymous said...

it seems that you want to envy those students. you are on a scholarship so what do you want anymore? just say thanks God for that. if you don't have relatives in the ruling parties, so it is your problem. life is not easy, so you have to struggle. why do you want everything for you? you want a scholarship, a sponsorship, relatives in the ruling parties, and a big flight to take you from home. are you dreaming?
your thinking is still the same.

However, i know you will repeat the same sentences and words. So am not going to argue again with you. You just need to format your memory.

Anonymous said...

Is this a Mark G Eye or Student Eye?

Anonymous said...

Giving scholarships to Arabs is not discrimination.

Anonymous said...

It is strange students with money FOR corruption are at protest FOR no more coruption? It is bad math?

Anonymous said...

Mark G, do you remember when you stole $800 from the university, and you run away from them by calling one of your students to take you to the airport?!!!
So especially YOU do not talk about injustice please!!!

Anonymous said...

Do you know what the right choice is? If the university fire all those who are participating in the protest, and began yelling and crying for the financial form, then most of the students Shut their mouths.

Mark G said...

I didn't owe them anything. But I knew they were going to try to shake me down (Josh had sent one of his goons after me), so I called a student for a ride to the airport. Pretty savvy, I thought. See you in Stockholm, suckers.

Anonymous said...

Mark did you try to sleep with a girl student and she said no way? Who are you? NEVER come back here or you will see JUSTICE belive me.

Mark G said...

"Mark did you try to sleep with a girl student and she said no way?"

Um, no. AUI-S is obviously trying to smear me because they can't argue with me on points. Why do they attack me personally instead of answering the charges against them?

Mark G said...

"Mark G, do you remember when you stole $800 from the university, and you run away from them by calling one of your students to take you to the airport?!!!"

I have to say, I almost like the image of me absconding with $800 cash in pocket. As if I snuck into the AUI-S deposit box on a late night...the truth is, those scumsuckers owed me money, not the other way around. And $800 is Monopoly money for those crooks, anyway. If I had decided to steal money from them, I would've taken a much larger sum than that!

Anonymous said...

IS EVERYBODY TIRED OF MARK G?

Mark G said...

"IS EVERYBODY TIRED OF MARK G?"

Apparently not. People keep attacking me with absurd allegations. I would be glad to this leave blog, but a group of anonymous trolls are saying outrageous things about me here. I think I deserve the right to respond. This anti-Mark feature is obviously the product of some sort of inept smear campaign staged by admin...it is so perfectly inept of them, but these lies will not stand, man.

Anonymous said...

In all fairness, Mark, I think you attack AUIS all the time. A student could be complaining about a WC, and the next post would come from you saying "GREAT article! This is exactly what I mean about corruption," etc.

Whether I agree with what students say or not, this blog belongs to them. If you and teachers want to fight, can't you do it someplace else? Please, no excuses about "They attacked me." How do you expect people to react when you demean everything they work for?

I think if you stopped posting, these "attacks" on you would stop immediately. So if that's what you're worried about, there's a simple solution.

Mark G said...

"I think if you stopped posting, these "attacks" on you would stop immediately."

You're confused. I re-visited this site in response to a letter written by Dr. Moulakis that directly attacked me. If I happen to make some comments on other threads while I'm here, I have every right to do so. That's what's good about the Internet: it levels the playing field. Anybody can comment. This is freedom of speech in action. Just because it's a student-run blog doesn't mean only students should write on it. If the editors agreed with you, then they wouldn't have let me written anything here in the first place.

In any case, I bet I'll be drifting away shortly, that is, until the next letter is revealed...

Anonymous said...

MARKIE MARK, WHY DON'T STUDENTS DEFEND YOU? Not even ONE?
Forgotten, irrelevant idiot boy on a CANADA PHD! How's the Myspace account going "DarkJustice"?

Anonymous said...

Dark WHAT? Are you fing serious? That's beautiful.

عشتار العراقية said...

I think students have not interfered very much in this talk-fight, because:

1- You are both foreigners. You do not belong to our culture.

2- Students are pleased to just watch how it goes and what will the outcome be.

3- They are learning. Drawing their own lessons from all this unfair battle between two wrestlers: one is known and the other is unknown.

As for me? I am just collecting, and comparing the pieces of truth that keep falling here and there.

Anonymous said...

Funny, for all your posts, they don't seem to care about you either. And you? You don't even have the courage to investigate the things that matter in this country. That's probably because you are one of those pretend journalists who shill for rival politicians. Why else would you be here? Goodbye, fraud.

Anonymous said...

I think they still send goons and try to hurt Mark G. in the U.S; if anybody hurts him, we will have a server reaction towards some anti-Marks here, in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

Threat.

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