Accessibility statement

Amir

Iraq, CAHR, Autumn 2008

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My name is Amir* and I am from Iraq. My background is in health, and I worked as an academic for fifteen years in Iraq until I was dismissed from my university job in 1993. For safety, I fled to Kurdistan, where I established a health development organisation. After the overthrow of the regime in 2003, I came back to Baghdad and worked as an adviser in the Ministry of Heath, where I implemented the strategic plan for the Ministry of Health from 2003-2008 alongside the US adviser.

I became increasingly concerned about the issue of corruption, which I had witnessed under Saddam Hussein, again in Kurdistan, and which I saw still continued under the new regime. In August 2003, I established a local NGO aimed at combating corruption. Our activities included:

  1. Working with local Human Rights NGOs, students, youth, women and cross-ministerial governmental officials on the concept of transparency
  2. Promoting a culture of anti-corruption through advocating local understanding of the problem using religious/ cultural tenets (corruption is anti-Islamic).
  3. Conducting research on the effect of monthly rations (ration cards system) on poverty-stricken families and campaigning to maintain this system .
  4. Conducting awareness campaigns aimed at children and students about the effect of corruption on their daily life and in general

In 2005, the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) came into force. We created a huge public awareness campaign aimed promoting Convention and encouraging the Iraqi government to sign up to it.

I and my colleagues and our families have faced threats of being “disappeared”, tortured and killed.

My current work includes:

  1. representation of victims and survivors of human rights violations in their fight for justice and redress.
  2. dissemination of information on human rights abuses (including annual reports).
  3. teaching human rights principles and values as part of the school curriculum
  4. awareness campaign for building the capacity of local communities to understand and claim their rights
  5. struggle to change oppressive laws on women’s rights
  6. encourage debate on draft laws such as that on freedom of expression law

This work is not very safe. I and my colleagues and our families have faced threats of being “disappeared”, tortured and killed. There are also other obstacles, such as being silenced by restrictive laws .

I plan to concentrate my work in the field of human rights and transparency and corruption. This Fellowship will provide me with the opportunity to develop my knowledge of the interrelation between human rights and the problems of transparency/corruption, poverty, health, and development. I will use this as an opportunity to both benefit from the knowledge of others working in this field and to see these issues from an out-of-region perspective. I intend to conduct research into these issues, as they apply to the situation in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole. I also plan to develop indicators on corruption/transparency, poverty and development with a human rights focus. I envision lecturing on these issues in universities in the region, especially in Iraq, in order to bring greater prominence to these issues in the region.

Success Story

My organisation is part of a network of 58 organisations in Iraq.  In the last three months, this network has established a new department in the University of Baghdad focusing on human rights.  We've held 34 workships in Iraq and beyond focusing on local government elections, and raising awareness about international and Iraqi electoral law.  We organised a special workshop for Iraqi women elected to local government to help them to work with local NGOs to improve the human right situation. All these activities were inspired by what I learnt during my time in York. (Amir, July 2009.)