Ragaz Kamal
Ragaz Kamal is a human rights defender and co-founder of 17shubat for Human Rights. On 24 December 2017, he was arrested by PUK Asayish security forces without an arrest warrant. He was asked to provide the login information for the 17shubat for Human Rights website. Following his publicizing of the incident, the he received threatening phone calls from individuals who identified themselves as PUK Asayish forces.
Media organizations and journalists who reported on protests or advocated for human rights are regularly the targets of politically motivated attacks and threats. In the Kurdistan region of Iraq a new law on NGOs allows them to receive funding from both foreign and local sources, open branches and form networks. However the general situation for human rights defenders in the area remains precarious with excessive force commonly used by police, and widespread torture of detainees and attacks on journalists.
