Articles for Iraq

On January 15, 2018, Alkarama sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) requesting that the UN experts call upon the Iraqi authorities to immediately release 24 individuals* arbitrarily detained as a result of their real or perceived link with former Vice-President Tariq Al Hashimi.

UPDATE: Samir Obeid was released on June 13, 2018 after having been acquitted on June 12.

On December 12, 2017, Samir Al Daami, a well-known Iraqi-Norwegian freelance journalist and political commentator, was released after spending nearly two months in prison.

In November 2017, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted 11 cases of missing people in Iraq to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). These 11 individuals were abducted by either the Iraqi army or the intelligence services in government-controlled areas, the majority over the course of 2014.

Between November 14 and 23, 2017, Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions conducted an official country visit to Iraq, including the Kurdish autonomous region.

During her visit, Callamard examined responses to the multiple violations of the right to life that have been perpetrated in Iraq since 2014, as well as the steps taken to hold the Islamic State (IS) and the Iraqi security forces accountable for these violations.

On October 22, 2017, Samir Al Daami, an Iraqi-Norwegian political commentator, was arrested after publishing a post on Facebook the day before criticising Iraq’s prime minister. Al Daami is currently detained incommunicado at Al Muthanna Air Base, where he is being denied contact with his family and lawyer.

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 17^th 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.