Articles for Iraq

Between May and June 2015, Ahmad Al Hajjar, Ahmad and Khalid Al Dulaimi disappeared after their arrest at checkpoints controlled by State-supported Hezbollah brigade. Displaced from their hometowns of Mosul and Ramadi, cities then under the Islamic State (IS)'s rule, they were suspected of being its "supporters" and brought to unknown locations.

On 13 October 2014 at 9 am, a group of several officers of the Iraqi security forces broke in the house of Mohamad Janabi in Latifiya, Babil governorate, and arrested him together with his son Najim his uncle Ahmad Janabi and the latter’s son Mehdi. Brought away to an unknown location, their relatives remain unaware of their fate and whereabouts almost two years after their abduction.

On 8 June 2014, Dawood Al Issawi was in his home with his family when a patrol of police officers and militia men broke in, arrested him and took him to an unknown location. This was the last time his family saw him, as he remains unforcedly disappeared until today.

On 19 August 2015, Waee Al Jabouri, lawyer and head of a human rights NGO, left his house in the morning and never came back. He disappeared after his arrest at a nearby checkpoint of the State sponsored militia Liwa Al Sadr. Concerned over his case, Alkarama and the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights sent his case to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) hoping that this mechanism for the protection for human rights will help locate him.

On the night of 1 July 2014, Hussein Azzawi was in his house in Latifiya, a town south of Baghdad, when 10 military officers broke in and arrested him, before taking him away in a pickup truck. Until today, his family was not able to obtain any information on his fate and whereabouts.

On 12 May 2016, Salih Al Dulaimi, professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the College of Engineering, University of Anbar, was sentenced to death on the basis of Iraq Antiterrorism Law by the Iraqi Central Criminal Court, the judge relying on statements Al Dulaimi made under heavy torture and alleged information provided by the US intelligence.

On Monday 4 July 2016, a day after the two deadly Baghdad bombings, the Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced the implementation of death sentences against five convicts on death row, upon request of the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi. New death sentences are soon to be announced said the Ministry of Justice, affirming that it would continue "to deliver just punishment to those whose hands are stained with the blood of Iraqis".

On 23 June 2016, Alkarama wrote to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, deploring the summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture by the Iraqi military forces and state-sponsored militias – including those belonging to the "People's Mobilisation Unit", an umbrella organisation of about 40 militias under the effective control of the Prime Minister – directed against the civilian population fleeing Fallujah.

On 12 June 2014, armed groups affiliated to the 'Islamic State' (IS) took over the Speicher base – a military base and air force training college situated between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit in the Salahuddin province – and executed more than 1500 Iraqi soldiers. Aware that IS was advancing towards the base, several military commanders ordered their subordinates to leave to save their lives.

On 9 June 2015, Raed Allawi Hussein Al-Janabi, a 35-year-old shepherd was grazing his sheep near Amiriyat Fallujah – 100 km east of Baghdad – when members of the Kata'ib Hezbollah militia in military uniform took him, without presenting a warrant or explaining the reasons.