Iraq

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Iraq
769 articles

Brutal Baghdad: How Iraqi authorities are complicit in protest deaths

Iraqi security forces reported withdrawing from Baghdad’s al-Khilani Square as unidentified militias massacred protesters earlier this month.

Open fire in Iraq: Continued killing of protesters despite orders to stop

The rising death toll suggests security forces are either ignoring orders to stop targeting protesters with live fire, or authorities have lost command of their own forces.

Iraq protests: The vicious tactics of a violent crackdown

As the death toll climbs, rights groups call on Iraqi authorities to cease the use of excessive force, and uphold the peoples’ right to peacefully demonstrate.

Iraq: How security forces are weaponising teargas for crowd control

Human Rights Watch documents the use of excessive force to quell protests in Iraq, and the deadly impact of tear gas cartridges.

Abducted voices: Freedom of expression threatened as Iraqi peaceful protesters are targeted

Rights groups call on Iraqi authorities to secure the release of civilian activists and human rights defenders that have been abducted and forcibly disappeared in recent weeks.

Protests in Iraq: How a deadly crackdown has put freedom of speech and assembly in peril

Rights groups call on Iraqi authorities to investigate protester deaths and uphold the right to freedom of expression and assembly.

Silencing Baghdad: Iraqi news stations targeted

Gunmen attack at least three TV stations, while Internet blocking persists.

Iraqi men carry a wounded protester during a demonstration in Baghdad, 4 October 2019, AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

Under fire in Iraq: Security forces must stop targeting demonstrators

As Iraqi citizens take to the streets in protest of the status quo, the right to demonstrate must be protected.

Is press freedom on the ‘brink of extinction’ in Iraqi Kurdistan?

How political party rivalries sparked a rise in detentions, arrests, and violence against journalists.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s autonomous government must release journalist Zuber Bradosti

Reporters Without Borders calls on Iraqi Kurdistan’s autonomous government to shed light on the circumstances of journalist Zuber Bradosti’s arrest by its intelligence services three weeks ago and to order his release.

Iraqi artist and human rights defender Ahmed Falah finds refuge in Norway

A single cartoon drove Ahmed Falah to five years uncertainty in exile in Jakarta. Now one of Iraq’s most influential and controversial cartoonists, he is safely in Norway with the ICORN programme, where he can continue to work freely without fear of persecution.

Iraq: Journalist Haidar Al-Hamdani threatened at his home

The words “Wanted for Blood,” a term often used to threaten people during disputes between Iraqi tribes, were painted on the front door of his family’s home in Al-Rumaitha.

Video journalists take cover behind a wall amid fighting in the region of Altun Kupri, about 50 km from Erbil, the capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, 20 October 2017, MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images

In Iraqi Kurdistan, journalists are victim of political tension

Authorities are shuttering news outlets and arresting critical reporters.

Locals gather in a tea shop in the town of Zakho in Duhok governorate, Iraq, 31 December 2018, Geovien So/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Targeting of activists and journalists continues in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan

GCHR urges the authorities in Kurdistan and the federal authorities in Iraq to respect public freedoms and refrain from targeting journalists and activists.

Displaced Iraqis from Mosul's eastern neighbourhoods arrive at the Al-Quds neighbourhood, as Iraqi special forces advance in an ongoing military operation against Islamic State jihadists, 3 January 2017, AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

Iraqi photojournalist Samer Ali Hussain killed in unknown circumstances

GCHR is calling on Iraqi authorities to conduct an independent, impartial and thorough investigation into Hussain’s murder.

Iraqi special forces members patrol in a street in Basra on 8 September 2018, after Iraq's Joint Operations Command, which includes the army and police, vowed a 'severe' response with 'exceptional security measures', including a ban on protests and group travel, HAIDAR MOHAMMED ALI/AFP/Getty Images

Continuing arrests of Basra protesters and four more demonstrators reported killed

Reports received by the GCHR confirmed that random arrests continue in September in Basra of dozens of demonstrators who participated in recent protests.