Articles for Iraq

Clockwise from top left: Ahmad Al Jabouri, Bilal Al Bazi,Falah Al Bazi, Marwan Al Subaihi, Talib Al Jabouri, Shaker Al Mafraji, Ghassan Al Samarraei, and Dawoud Al Samarraie

(L-R) Ahmed Al Jamali, Karim Al Shammari and Safaa Al Khafaji

(Geneva, August 8, 2018) – On July 27, 2018, Alkarama requested the intervention of several UN experts in the cases of three Iraqi citizens who were severely beaten by the security forces in Iraq due to their participation in demonstrations across the country.

Use of excessive lethal force to crack down on Iraqi protests

(Geneva, August 3, 2018) – The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD ) has published a decision adopted in April 2018 and issued in late July qualifying the detention of 24 Iraqi citizens* as arbitrary. The majority of individuals named in Opinion 38/2018 were employees or persons with alleged personal connections with former Vice-President Tariq Al Hashimi.

(Geneva, July 30, 2018) – Over the course of July 2018, Alkarama has submitted 11 cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), of which seven have been documented in partnership with the NGO Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly.

(Geneva, July 20, 2018) – On June 20, 2018, Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, published a report following her official visit to Iraq that took place between November 14 and 23, 2017.

(Geneva, June 5, 2018) – On May 31, 2018, Alkarama requested the urgent intervention of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) in the case of Meyasar Mohammad Saleh Faek Omar Al Noaime, an Iraqi colonel who remains missing since his arrest by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in February 2017.

On April 23 and 24, 2018, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly requested the urgent intervention of the UN human rights mechanisms in the cases of three individuals who disappeared following their arrests by the Iraqi authorities between 2006 and 2015.

Geneva (April 27, 2018) – On April 18, 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Committee published its follow-up report after reviewing Iraq’s implementation of four key recommendations issued following the country’s review in October 2015. The report concluded that the recommendations had “not been fully implemented” by the Iraqi authorities.

Between December 2017 and February 2018, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted seven more cases of disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

Hamid Al Zoubai, Ahmad Al Dulaimi, cousins Duraid and Sattar Al Janabi, and brothers Falih, Salih and Meshtaq Al Janabi all disappeared in 2014 in different regions of the country.

Throughout February and March 2018, Iraqi human rights defenders Faisal Al Tamimi and Iyad Al Roumy have been subjected to threats and attacks in retaliation for speaking out against the practice of enforced disappearances in the country and for calling on Iraq to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).