"We told them, no, we cannot approve [violence against the centers], but it's the duty of any honorable Muslim to take care of anything harming the name of Islam," he said.
Holland worked for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority's office in Hillah, a large city about an hour's drive south of Baghdad, and since late summer had been the women's rights coordinator, setting up centers across south-central Iraq.
She was helping women participate in drafting the women's rights sections of the interim constitution and bringing delegations of Iraqi women to the United States to tell their stories and learn about democracy.
"The centers were all her work. She got the women organized. They wanted to have them, but they'd never done anything like this before, they'd never organized," said Hilary White, Holland's roommate in Hillah and the chief press officer for the CPA's south-central Iraq office. "She was a wonderful mentor and friend to them."
Holland had opened centers in Hillah, Karbala, Najaf and Diwaniya and was working on two more, in Al Kut and Ramadi. Without someone with Holland's drive, Iraqi women worry it will take much longer to get the last centers running.
In a meeting Sunday with women from the Hillah center, CPA officials said they would appoint an Iraqi woman as the liaison between their office and women's centers, said Faezala Ebadi, a gynecologist and board member of the center. But Ebadi said she doubted that after Holland's death any Iraqi woman would want to take the risk. "Maybe the other women know somebody, but I don't," she said.
The centers have a dual mission of job training and democracy education through classes on topics such as elections and how to lobby for rights.
They also serve as safe places for women to discuss their troubles. Many women in southern Iraq are poor and have lost male family members -- the chief breadwinners -- to war and persecution by Saddam Hussein.
Although investigators have arrested six suspects in connection with the deaths of Holland, press officer Robert Zangas and interpreter Salwa Ourmashi, it remains unclear whether they were targeted for their work with women or for being employees of the occupation authority. Four of the suspects appear to be members of the U.S.-trained Iraqi police.
In the months leading up to the attack, the road between Baghdad and Hillah has been the site of numerous deadly attacks on foreigners, and friends and colleagues had urged Holland to take more safety precautions.
