On September 19th 2003, just a few months after the American invasion, the first post-war secular organisation was launched in Iraq. The Committee for Defending Secularism in Iraqi Society (CDSIS) was formally announced at a press conference attended by representatives of Iraqi political parties and the international and Arab media.

The official announcement was made by Issam Shukri, a renowned architect and a member of the central committee of the Iraqi Workers Communist party. Other members of the group included Yanar Mohammed, a women’s rights activist and founder of the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), the Iraqi lawyer and human rights activist Faleh Maktuf, and Falah Alwan, a member of the Federation of Workers Councils in Iraq.

The goals of CDSIS were expressed in this excerpt from the opening statement of the group:

The committee, which was later renamed as the Organisation for Defending Secularism in Iraqi Society (ODSIS), faced violent opposition from the Islamic parties and from groups within and outside the Governing Council, mainly because ODSIS had spoken forcefully against the infamous Resolution 137, passed last January by Islamic members of the Governing Council, to replace the Iraqi civil law on personal and family affairs by the Islamic Sharia.

Yanar Mohammed, in particular, received two death threats in her personal email account from an anonymous group which called itself Jaish Al-Sahaba (Army of Compatriots). The first message which, titled "Killing Yanar Mohammed within a few days" threatened to murder Yanar if she persisted in her "psychologically disturbed ideas about women's freedom." The second email threatened to blow up activists working with Yanar. Yanar was active in organising symposiums and sit-ins for Iraqi women’s organisations against Resolution 137, and for speaking against forced veiling, intimidation and the abduction of women. She was also responsible for opening at a secret location the first shelter for Iraqi women threatened with domestic violence and honour killing – an unprecedented step in the region.

Yanar asked the US forces for protection, but to no avail. She was supported by the Iraqi Workers Communist party for a while but she had to eventually leave the country after she was named in sermons from Sadr city to Kirkuk, and attempts were made on her life. Her cause has since been taken up by various international women’s and human rights groups, and she has appeared on several media outlets and given speeches and talks at universities in Europe, the USA and Canada.

In March 2004, after the US-appointed Governing Council members signed the Transitional Administrative Law, which was to serve as an interim constitution until an elected body was in power, the ODSIS strongly protested against Article 3 of the preamble, paragraph A, which lays down that "no amendment may be made" to the Law that would "affect Islam or any other religions or sects and their rites"; Article 7, paragraph A, which cites Islam as "the offical religion of the state and to be considered a source of legislation"; and also against paragraph B of the same article which described Iraq as an "inseperable part of the Arab nation". ODSIS stated that these additions would pave the way for a new religious and chauvinist despotism in Iraq.

Apparently this was the last straw for the Islamists. Shortly afterwards, Al-Fartusi, a senior aide of Muqtada Al-Sadr in Sadr city, condemned ODSIS as a tool for the decadent west and Zionism to introduce immorality and depravity into Iraq's 'conservative' society, describing its members as apostates. Fardusi had previously instigated young Shi'ite extremists to attack liquor stores, music and DVD rental shops in Baghdad, after which several Christian liquor merchants were gunned down and their stores burnt in the Al-Bayaa and Karrada districts. There was no doubt that the organisation would soon face similar reprisals.

Lacking the necessary protection from the authorities and public support, ODSIS had no choice but to close down it's offices and go underground.

Most of its few members are now abroad and seem to have suspended their activities inside Iraq. The organisation recently published the first issue of its online magazine 'Secular' (in Arabic).