Articles for Iraq

On 24 September 2014, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly wrote to Emmanuel Decaux, Chairman of the Committee on Enforced Disappearance (CED) to call on the Iraqi authorities to release Jamal Hadi Abdel Raouf Al Abdali, disappeared since his arrest by a security patrol on 21 April 2014.

On 24 September 2014, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly wrote to the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) to alert them on the case of Jamal AbdulKareemKazar Al Zabidi, President of the Taekwondo Federation and member of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, disappeared since his arrest by members of the Iraqi military forces on 15 July 2006.

On 8 and 9 October 2014, Alkarama briefed country representatives on its priority recommendations in view of Iraq's Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which will be held in Geneva on 3 November 2014.

Alkarama, in collaboration with Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly, sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) to highlight the disappearance of Mohammed Al Aseymi, together with his three sons and nephew, since his abduction by pro-government militia in 2006.

On 15 September 2014, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly sent a joint urgent appeal to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances concerning the abduction of Riad Abdel Majeed Al Obeidi, a former Air Force Brigade pilot, in Al A'amiriya on 1 June 2014. Having not been seen since, his family fears that he be tortured or ill-treated, particularly after he managed to contact them, from his detention place, in mid-June.

On 5 August 2014, Alkarama sent a communication to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to call upon the Iraqi authorities to end the arbitrary detention of four security officers by releasing them immediately. Ghassan Al Kubaisi, Omar Al Noaemy, Abdulrazak Al Duleimi and Uday Al Ithawi were all arrested between December 2011 and January 2012, severely tortured and forced to make false confessions, on the basis of which they were later sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI).

Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly wrote to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to ask for the immediate release of Abbas Fadhil Abboud Kadhim Al Batawi, disappeared since his arrest by a pro-government militia almost eight years ago. Although the 20-year old Iraqi student was seen on a video footage in 2007, the authorities continue to deny his detention.

On 8 July 2014, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly requested the intervention of the UN Working  Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, with the Iraqi authorities to release Mustafa Jassim Kazem Al Rubaie immediately or at least to put him under the protection of the law. Arrested by the Iraqi authorities on 26 June 2006, the 24-year old Iraqi student was last seen on a video footage of a prison in Baghdad in February 2011, but the authorities continue to deny his detention.

During the American occupation in Iraq, numerous Iraqi citizens have been arbitrarily arrested or abducted, sometimes without specific motives. Some of them, held incommunicado in American branches, have not reappeared since. These detention centres have been handed over to the Iraqi authorities after the coalition forces left in 2011.

Ayesh Al Harby, a 41 year-old Saudi refugee, has been repeatedly detained and tortured in Iraq since his first arrest in July 2005. In 2009, he was sentenced by Al Rusafa court, Baghdad, to 15 years imprisonment following a grossly unfair trial. Ayesh and fifty eight other Saudi prisoners were transferred mid-March from Al Rusafa Prison to Al Nasiriyah, a maximum security prison located 300 km south-east of Baghdad, following a decision issued by the Ministry of Justice.