ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Since the start of the protests in Iraq, many activists and journalists have been assassinated or kidnapped by unidentified armed forces that seem to operate with impunity.
Beside the high rate of deaths and injuries among protesters due to direct clashes with the security forces and armed groups, many journalists and activists have been individually targeted.
Two journalists in Basra were killed on Friday. Prominent Iraqi journalist Ahmed Abdul Samad and his cameraman Safaa al-Ghali were shot by unknown gunmen in their car while covering Iraq’s ongoing protests for Dijlah TV.
Iraqis have been protesting in central and southern parts of Iraq for more than 100 days, demanding real changes in the country and threatening to topple the political class that has held power since 2005.
Young Iraqis first took to the streets on October 1 demanding jobs, services, and an end to corruption. The protests quickly morphed into a demand for a complete overthrow and overhaul of Iraq’s current government.
Iraqi security forces and armed militias in Iraq responded to the protests in Baghdad and southern provinces with excessive force. As of December, more than 511 protesters and members of security forces have been killed and around 17,000 more wounded since protests began on October 1.
Following the US government’s drone strike assassination of Iran’s top military commander in Baghdad last Friday, violence against protesters and targeting of journalists seem to be rising once again in southern Iraq.
Ahmed Abdul Samad had been covering the protests since they began, and posted a video criticizing Iran’s role in Iraqi politics shortly before he was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to the head.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a global media watchdog, condemned the killing and demanded the Iraqi government “immediately open an investigation” in order to find and arrest those responsible for the assassination.
On Saturday, Ibrahim Saeed Al-Baidhani, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Iraqi Historians, survived a stabbing assassination attempt in central Baghdad. The motive behind the attempted killing is still unknown.
Individual activists have also been targeted by forces who oppose the protests.
Fahim al-Taie, an activist from Karbala, was killed outside his home in December by unknown gunmen riding a motorcycle. Several other activists, including female activists, have been assassinated or survived assassination attempts in different parts of Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.
According to an IHCHR report sent to Rudaw English via WhatsApp in December 2019, a total of 68 protesters and activists have been kidnapped by unknown armed groups due to their involvement in anti-government protests since October 1.
At least 56 activists are still missing after being kidnapped by armed perpetrators in different cities in Iraq. Their fate is still unknown. 12 activists have been kidnapped and subsequently released.
The Iraqi government has also restricted press freedom in the country by suspending the licenses of nine media outlets for their coverage of the protests in Baghdad and other southern provinces. It has also as implemented frequent internet blackouts in order to cut the communication between protesters and the rest of the world and make it more difficult for journalists to ascertain what is happening on the ground.
Iraq’s Communications and Media Commission’s (CMC) issued an order on November 21 to suspend the operating license of nine television channels and the warning of others for covering the protests in the streets.
CPJ reported that Dijlah TV, the channel that Ahmed Abdul Samad and Safaa al-Ghali worked for, was one of the channels shut down by the CMC, and its Baghdad office was raided in November.
In early October, masked gunmen attacked the offices of Kurdish media agency NRT in Baghdad, while news channel Al-Hadath released CCTV footage of the Baghdad office it shares with fellow Saudi outlet Al-Arabiya being ransacked by gunmen.
Rudaw also received a warning regarding its coverage of the protests.
Among those blamed for the ongoing spate of kidnappings, murders and disappearances are factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi), who are well-armed and act with little or no state oversight.
In November 2019, Amnesty International reported PMF involvement in at least one abduction - that of a lawyer in the south of the country. Despite government measures meant to reel the group in by integrating them into Iraq’s official security apparatus, the PMF brigades are widely perceived as answering to Iran rather than Iraq.
The armed groups responsible for killing and kidnapping the journalists and activists in Iraq have not been identified by the Iraqi government, nor is there any indication that the government is attempting to identify them.
