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Between October and November 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted seven more cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq – all of which took place in Baghdad and its surrounding areas in 2014 – to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

On October 25, 2017, Alkarama expressed concern over the ongoing clampdown on peaceful dissent in Saudi Arabia while bringing several cases of arbitrary arrests to the attention of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression (SR FREEDEX), David Kaye.

On October 23, 2017, Omani journalist Yousuf Al Balouchi – known under the pen name of Yousuf Al Haj – was released from the Central Prison in Muscat after being detained for one year as a result of an article denouncing corruption at the Supreme Court level. Just weeks before his release, Al Zaman newspaper, where Al Haj was working at the time of his arrest, was permanently shut down by the authorities following a long legal dispute.

On October 23, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly requested the urgent intervention of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) in the case of an Iraqi soldier who disappeared following his 2014 arrest, and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown to date.

On October 17, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly sent an urgent appeal to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the case of a 34-year-old taxi driver who has been missing since his abduction by American forces in Iraq in September 2008.

On October 18, 2017, Alkarama and Urnammu for Justice and Human Rights sent an urgent appeal to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the case of Ruba Bakkar and her two young children, all of whom remain missing following their arrests by Syrian government forces in 2013.

Six years after their abductions by the Sudanese National Security and Intelligence Services (NISS), politicians Musa Ali Ahmed Abdeen and Malek Abdallah Abdulgadir both remain disappeared to date.

Their relatives - who were themselves subjected to reprisals by the authorities for requesting information about the fate and whereabouts of their family members - are extremely concerned about their physical integrity and safety.

On October 17, 2017, Palestinian lawyer and human rights defender, Shireen Issawi, was released from an Israeli prison after being arbitrarily detained for over three and a half years.

Issawi was arrested along with her brothers, Shadi and Medhat, in March 2014, and accused of “cooperating with actors working against Israel.” Her arrest came as part of a crackdown by the Israeli authorities on lawyers who had defended Palestinian prisoners.

On October 13, 2017, Alkarama and Urnammu for Justice and Human Rights Foundation sent an urgent appeal to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the case of Salma Abdul Razzaq, a 27-year-old Palestinian student who has been missing since her arrest near Yarmouk refugee camp on December 30, 2012.

On October 5, 2017, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on the right to education concerning the cases of 119 Qatari citizens who have been prevented from pursuing their education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a result of the diplomatic dispute between the two countries.