Middle East

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THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM is a documentary feature that traces the intersecting stories of U.S.-affiliated Iraqi refugees and the Americans attempting to aid them. The film exposes the long-term human consequences of war and raises questions about the moral responsibility we have to those Iraqis who lost everything because they believed in America most.

Aired the week of Friday, August 29th, 2008.

Watch a preview at Principle Pictures.com

Tribal violence claims hundreds of lives every year in Yemen. The House of Peace encourages non-violent solutions to land disputes and 'love' crimes – violations of marriage arrangements that offend Yemen's conservative social code.

It's dangerous work. House of Peace members have died during mediation efforts, attempting to diffuse armed stand-offs.

But Sheikh AbdulRahman al-Marwani, the organization's director, also attends lengthy discussion forums with rival groups and arranges theatre workshops to spread the message of reconciliation.

Imran Riza, the representative in Amman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, discusses in an interview with Matthew Brown the challenges facing Iraqis in Jordan, and the ways in which they differ from more traditional refugees.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Damascus, Syria

Adnan Al Sharify sees a few obstacles holding up the return of Iraqi refugees to their home country.

Sharify, an official at the Iraqi Embassy here in Syria, helped to organize government-sponsored bus trips at the end of last year that he says carried 420 Iraqi families back to Baghdad. The Syrian government estimates the Iraqi populaton here at 1.5 million.

More free rides home are planned, Sharify told me this morning. But finding takes is likely to remain a challenge.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Damascus, Syria

The relationship between Iraqi refugees and their hosts in Syria and Jordan is complicated.

On the one hand, I have heard much talk of Arab brotherhood among both officials and ordinary people in the two countries. On the other, Iraqis in both countries are blamed for rising prices and housing costs.

Salaam Marougi says he understands the negative reactions he occasionally encounters.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Damascus, Syria

As a Sunni Muslim married to a Shia, Hamid Al Dulayme was threatened by both sides in Baghdad. When militia members broke into his house in 2005, he fled Iraq.

In Syria, he says, he has left sectarian conflict behind. "The best thing here is there is no problem between different groups," Dulayme told me this morning in Saida Zeinab, a suburb of Damascus now dominated by refugees.

Yemen's civil society is still in an early growth phase but non-profits and pressure groups will play an important role in strengthening democratic institutions for the future.

I wrote last Friday about the need for a new trust to support girls who escape from early, unwanted marriages.

But I recently spent the morning at an incubator organization, the Youth Leadership Development Foundation, which is training the next generation of managers and administrators who will help the civil society sector to grow.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Damascus, Syria

Of Mustafa Hamad's 10 children, seven are old enough to go to school. Only four do.

The Iraqi Kurd, who brought his family here from Baghdad last year, is surviving on assistance from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and remittances from a brother-in-law who lives in Britain. He says he can't afford school fees for three of his daughters.

Reproduced with permission from The Christian Science Monitor.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Amman, Jordan

Najim Abid Hajwal has been having a difficult time renewing his passport.

He submitted his paperwork at the Iraqi Embassy here, but was told days later that he was wanted back home in Iraq. It turned out the Interior Ministry was after someone with a similar name. He submitted new paperwork to prove his identity, but was issued a passport with a wrong name.

It's enough to make an Iraqi nostalgic for the good old days.

Twelve-year-old Reem has done so many interviews with journalists, she's lost count. "She's like Nancy Ajram now," her mother joked - referring to a famous Lebanese singer.

I visited Reem in her mum's Sana'a appartment for my Christian Science Monitor story on child brides. Reem's parents are separated. Since the start of her summer vacation in June, Reem has been kidnapped by her father, married, repeatedly raped by a man twice her age, rescued by police and reunited with her mother - but she is still waiting for a judge to annul her wedding contract.

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Amman, Jordan

Since arriving here earlier this week, I've heard several estimates of the number of Iraqis living in Jordan.

At the Iraqi Embassy today, I was told the population is no larger than 200,000. The number used by the Jordanian government, which is based on a survey completed last year by the FAFO Institute for Applied International Studies of Norway, is between 450,000 and 500,000.