Articles for Iraq

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.

In September 2015, after the first review of Iraq, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) issued three priority recommendations that the country should implement within one year to ensure compliance with the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances (

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has issued a decision calling the detention of Ahmad Al Alwani, opposition member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, arbitrary since he “was targeted and discriminated against for his Sunni background and political opinions and activities”.  Al Alwani had been arrested in December 2013 and secretly detained for a month during which he was tortured in order to force him to sign a self-incriminating statement.

Between late 2011 and March 2012, Iraqi security forces arrested numerous individuals believed to be close to former Vice President Tariq Al Hashimi, a leading figure of the opposition. Following severely flawed trials during which confessions extracted under torture were admitted into evidence, they were sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court under the Anti-Terrorism Law.

Salih Al Dulaimi, a 47-year-old professor at the College of Engineering, University of Anbar, was arrested on 26 March 2015 and sentenced to death by the Iraqi Central Criminal Court on the basis of Iraq Antiterrorism Law after a deeply flawed trial.