On White House list, a gender goof

WASHINGTON -- President Bush marked International Women's Week yesterday by paying tribute to women reformers -- but one of those he cited is really a man.

"Earlier today, the Libyan government released Fathi Jahmi. She's a local government official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech and democracy," the president said at the White House.

The only problem was that, by all other accounts, "she" is in fact "he."

"Definitely male," said Alistair Hodgett, spokesman for the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, whose representatives tried to see Jahmi in prison during a recent visit to Libya.

The US House Committee on International Relations listed Jahmi as a 62-year-old civil engineer who was sentenced to five years in prison "after he reportedly stated during a session of the People's Conference . . . that reform within Libya would never take place in the absence of a constitution, pluralism, and democracy."

In remarks before a VIP audience, Bush cited Jahmi as a courageous reformer along with Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate living under house arrest in Myanmar. All told, the president made references to more than a dozen other women, ranging from his wife, first lady Laura Bush, to last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi of Iran.