Category: Civil Society

Iraqi Activists And The Difficult Decision To Boycott Elections

In October 2019, a broad based protest movement in Iraq seized international headlines with mass rallies, marches, occupation-style encampments, and civil disobedience in Baghdad and other cities across the south. Activists dubbed their movement “Tishreen” from the Arabic word for October. Despite the largely peaceful, inclusive, and organized nature of… Read more

Will young protesters be the dark horses in Iraq’s next election?

Originally published by Middle East Monitor – September 3, 2020 On 4 August, Iraqi activist Ridha Al-Igaili’s home in Amara, the capital of Maysan province, was attacked by militiamen who fired a rocket-propelled grenade and sprayed the building with bullets. This was the second attempt on his life this year.… Read more

#38: Social Media and Iraq’s Protest Movement

The nonviolent struggle for democratic reforms in Iraq is now well into its fifth month of sustained protests against the government. We talk with Hayder Hamzoz, founder of INSM (Iraqi Network for Social Media), a network of Iraqi bloggers and citizens journalists. Hayder shares his perspective on how the protests work and the critical role that social media activists are playing on both the physical and digital front lines of Iraq's protest movement.

Summer is Here

As the mercury surges in Mesopotamia, so does the risk for a new showdown between angry protesters demanding better conditions and a government struggling to provide for them but is shackled by a legacy of corruption and incompetent, fiefdom-like institutions.   Many parts of southern Iraq, especially Basra, witnessed widespread protestsRead more

Interview with Yazidi Activist Hazim Avdal on Post-Genocide Peace and Justice

  In 2014, the Iraqi Yazidi community, a small ethno-religious minority residing mostly in the area of Sinjar, a mountainous region in Ninewa, northwestern Iraq, was subjected to a campaign of massacres, mass kidnappings and enslavement of women, boys and girls at the hands of ISIS. Between 2,000-5,000 Yazidis lost… Read more

Learning to Better Treat Mentally Traumatized Patients in Iraq

This month, a group of Iraqi medical professionals, social workers and psychiatrists gathered in Mosul for three days to undergo intensive training on integrating the provision of mental health care in primary health care centers and hospitals. The professionals in this group work at 16 different facilities and organizations across… Read more

The Power of Empathy and Advocacy

“I have long said that Americans are the most generous people in the world. But we do have the shortest attention spans. And when it comes to global crises today, I fear that too many in the United States believe that we can insulate ourselves from the world’s problems and… Read more