In the morning of 27 August 2014, about eight members of the Federal Police dressed in white and blue uniforms stormed into Al Aqidi's property in the Al Rasheed neighbourhood of Yusufiyah, 30km south of Baghdad, killing his cows before arresting him. Blindfolded and handcuffed, the farmer was forced into a police car that took him to an unknown location. One month later, Al Aqidi's family learnt from recently released detainees that their relative was held at the detention centre of the Dora Crimes Department, a centre under the control of the Ministry of Interior, located near the road to Baghdad International airport.

Following his disappearance, his family filed complaints with the Central Criminal Court and searched for his name in the databases of the Baghdad airport prison and of the 7th Brigade of the Army, located in Baghdad, but to no avail.

Left with no other recourse at the national level, the family contacted Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly – an Iraqi human rights organisation documenting cases of disappearances – and Alkarama in the hope that they could help locate and release their family member. In view of these facts, the two human rights NGOs seized the CED, asking its members to urge the Iraqi authorities to release Al Aqidi immediately or, at the very least, to put him under the protection of the law by disclosing his whereabouts and allowing his family to visit him without restriction.

"Al Aqidi's case is yet another case of disappearance in the town of Yusufiyah, where seven disappearances have already been documented by Alkarama, in September and October 2015," says Inès Osman, Mashreq Legal Officer at Alkarama. "We are extremely concerned that despite several UN communications calling on the State to end this practice, enforced disappearances continue to be carried out by security forces without any accountability for those responsible."

Alkarama recalls that the issue of enforced disappearances in Iraq is especially complex due to the length of time over which the practice occurs, starting from the regime that ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003 – especially during the war with Iran in the 1980s – and continuing throughout the US-led invasion after 2003, having become a widespread practice today. Concerned over the hundreds of thousands of people disappeared in Iraq to date, Alkarama calls on the Iraqi authorities to urgently implement the recommendations of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) issued during its 9th session in September 2015, in particular to:

• Incorporate enforced disappearance into domestic law as an autonomous offence, in line with the definition contained in Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of all People from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (ICPPED), binding upon Iraq by virtue of its ratification in November2010;
• Adopt all the necessary measures to ensure that no person is held in secret detention, including by guaranteeing that all persons deprived of liberty are granted, since the outset of their deprivation of liberty, all the fundamental legal safeguards provided under Article 17 ICPPED; and
• Ensure that all persons who were forcibly disappeared and whose fate is not yet known are searched for and located without delay.

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