News Release
Dominican Sister discusses her photos of "The people of Iraq & the current humanitarian crisis"
Sister Beth Murphy will speak about her photography exhibit "IF THEY HAD FACES: JOURNEYS THROUGH IRAQ" at University of Detroit Mercy on Monday, February 2. She will give talks at 10 a.m. and noon. The talks will be held in the Fountain Lounge in the Student Center on UDM’s McNichols Campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The photographic display can also be viewed in the lobby of the McNichols Campus Library through February 5. The exhibit is the result of Murphy’s three journeys to Iraq during which she documented the Iraqi people and the physical, psychological, economic and social consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of their country. She will discuss her experiences in Iraq, the humanitarian crisis of Iraqi refugees, and her work with the Archdiocese of Detroit to meet the needs of Iraqi refugees here in the Detroit area.
Between 2001 and 2004, Murphy, a Dominican Sister of Springfield, Illinois, made three journeys to Iraq. The first two trips, in March of 2001 and December of 2002, were 10-day fact-finding trips in the company of other Dominicans and of leaders in U.S. Catholic social justice organizations. They took place while UN economic sanctions against Iraq were still in place.
Her third and longest journey began nine months after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq. She and another Dominican Sister entered an Iraq under the control of the Coalition Provisional Authority. They arrived at Baghdad International Airport on December 14, 2003, just hours after Saddam Hussein’s arrival at a U.S. detention facility there, and only hours before CPA head L. Paul Bremer announced that the Iraqi leader was in Coalition custody. The two U.S. Dominicans traveled for a month in the company of their Iraqi Dominican sisters and brothers through Baghdad, Mosul, the Plains of Nineveh, and Iraqi Kurdistan.
The exhibit and speaking events are sponsored by UDM’s Carney Latin American Solidarity Archive (CLASA). For more information, contact Dr. Gail Presbey at (313) 993-1124 or presbegm@udmercy.edu.
Release date: January 27, 2009
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