Articles for Iraq

On November 7, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted five more cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). The five disappearances, which targeted two families, all took place in Latifiya, a small town south of Baghdad, on June 6, 2015.

Two families targeted in wave of arrests

Malik Al Janabi and his brother, Yasser, were both arrested by members of the 17th Division of the Iraqi Army on the night of June 6, 2015.

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 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.

In December 2015, following its fifth review of Iraq, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HR Committee) issued four priority recommendations to be implemented within one year.

On October 4, 2017, Rasha Al Husseini, secretary to former Vice President Tariq Al Hashimi, was released after the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad decided to drop the charges held against her. Al Husseini was arrested on December 27, 2011, as part of a wave of arrests which targeted individuals believed to be close to the former vice president.

On September 22, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted seven cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

These seven cases are only the tip of a much larger iceberg in a country where the practice of enforced disappearances is widespread and systematic, and the rate of missing people remains one of the highest worldwide.

Two brothers and their cousin forcibly disappeared in Samarra

Over the course of September 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly have submitted five cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

These cases represent part of the systematic practice of enforced disappearance in Iraq, where the rate of missing people remains one of the highest worldwide.

Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Units both guilty of enforced disappearances

On August 28 and 29, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly wrote to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED ) regarding the disappearances of Duraid Al Janabi and Raed Al Janabi, both from Latifaya, who have been missing since 2014.

On August 25, 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly wrote to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the disappearance of Hazim Al Janabi, a daily worker from the small town of Latifiya, south of Baghdad.

Al Janabi was driving with his cousins on August 23, 2006 when he was stopped near the Yusufiya’s Bridge, at a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi Military Division no. 17. The officers arrested Al Janabi along with all other passengers travelling with him, before confiscating the vehicle.