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In an increasingly interconnected world and with the rise of massive social media corporations and big data analytics, digital privacy and data security have never been more important.

While in many advanced democratic societies the debate often revolves around the citizens right to a private space, in countries such as Iraq the lack of privacy can have deadlier repercussions and so demonstrators are increasingly adopting novel means of keeping their identities away from the prying eyes of security forces and powerful Shia militias.

Since the US-led invasion and occupation of the country in 2003, Iraq has had a long history of civil unrest and protest movements. Up until 2013, these were largely led by the Sunni Arab minority that felt marginalised by the post-2003 order.

Their demonstrations came to a violent end in 2013 when former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the army to forcibly disperse protest camp sites in Ramadi and other cities, a move an Iraqi parliamentary probe later blamed for the rise of the armed group ISIL (ISIS) in Mosul.

Since ISILs defeat in 2017, tensions between state and society simmered until exploding in October 2019, this time in Iraqs Shia heartlands traditionally the bastion of electoral support for the Shia-dominated political system.

Electronic armies have managed to penetrate the phones and social media accounts of some activists [Alaa al-Marjani/Reuters]Complaining of corruption, a lack of economic security, and accusing Iraqs political elites of being beholden to foreign powers, particularly Iran, mostly Shia Arabs took to the streets of the capital Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriya, and other main population centres throughout central and southern Iraq.

The federal authorities response was to once more resort to violence, backed extensively by Shia militias which deployed snipers on rooftops to pick off demonstrators.

There are so many examples of the states alliance with the militias, Sara, who attended the protests in Baghdad, told Al Jazeera, asking that her real name not be used for her own security.

Their alliance was to protect a system that works for Iran and its clients in Iraq, not the Iraqi people who suffer under their corrupt rule, she said. They have a long history of violence against the Iraqi people.

In a two-pronged offensive against the demonstrators and the international media organisations reporting on their protests, the government throttled social media sites used to organise the demonstrations and then cut internet access across much of the country to prevent both professional and citizen journalists from reporting on abuses.

However, even after internet services were restored, activists faced a series of cyberattacks that led to arrests and the disruption of protests.

To begin with, we used apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter to organise marches and publicise what was happening, an unemployed software developer who participated in protests in Baghdad in 2019 and 2020 told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

But we soon discovered that a lot of these apps had been compromised by victims being tricked [into installing] fake apps that downloaded messages straight off phones. We would turn up to an area to hold a protest and find masked militias waiting for us with knives and clubs, he said.

While this suggests both the Iraqi security forces and militias have greatly expanded their cybersecurity capabilities, experts say the hacking expertise could be imported from neighbouring Iran.

Certainly, the electronic armies of the Iranian-backed militias are getting support from Iranian experience and expertise in electronic warfare, Watheq al-Sadoon, Iraq expert at Turkish think tank ORSAM said, referring to the specialist cyberunits embedded within most militia and state security entities.

The electronic armies have managed to penetrate the phones and social media accounts of some activists, al-Sadoon added. This allowed the militias to spy on activists and send threats to them.

Evidence of Irans burgeoning cyber-warfare capabilities has recently been uncovered.

In September, The New York Times reported on a sophisticated Iranian hacking programme that specifically targeted dissidents. Al-Sadoon suggested this could have easily and cheaply been exported to Irans clients in Iraq.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other rights monitors, activists have been routinely targeted for arrests and enforced disappearances.

Despite Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis promises to locate those who had been forcibly disappeared, HRW described his efforts as a do-nothing mechanism.

Some high-profile dissidents have even been targeted for assassination.

On Wednesday, the father of a missing anti-government activist, Jasb Hattab Aboud, was killed after he waged a public campaign trying to bring to account a militia suspected of abducting his son.

Last December, Salah al-Iraqi was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Baghdads al-Jadida area.

In August, Reham Yacoub, a medical doctor and well-known activist who had been key to the protest movement in Basra and was a staunch womens rights activist, was similarly gunned down by masked assailants. She had been the subject of repeated death threats because of her activism.

In all instances, no arrests have been made with suspicions falling on the Shia armed groups who control the areas in which the killings happened.

In the wake of al-Iraqis murder, rights groups, including Amnesty International and HRW, said the authorities failure to bring the perpetrators to justice was perpetuating and further entrenching decades of impunity that have left brave individuals without the most basic protection.

With almost 600 protesters killed and thousands more wounded, arrested, or else victims of enforced disappearances, Iraqi civil society has had to adapt in order to survive, and has turned to technological innovation for protection.

The unemployed software developer said he had increasingly been training activists on how to use anonymisation technologies to protect them from infiltration, when demonstrations restart after the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.

One of the main technologies relied on are virtual private networks, or VPNs.

There are now new technologies available that give us an additional layer of security, such as decentralised VPNs. Weve had to rely on these as there have been major security breaches on conventional VPN services and we cannot guarantee our data is not being shared, said the software developer.

He referred to NordVPN, one of the worlds largest privately-owned VPNs, which was hacked twice in late 2019 and compromised the security and privacy of its users. Instead, Iraqi activists are increasingly relying on novel VPNs such as Sentinel, a decentralised VPN, or dVPN.

Srinivas Baride, chief technology officer of Exidio, which developed the Sentinel technology, told Al Jazeera his companys technology was specifically designed to solve the problem of centralised control over users data, a risk all customers of traditional centralised VPNs face.

Centralised VPNs operate under a central authority, usually a corporation, that controls and manages all the information related to the users, Baride said. But in our dVPN protocol, everything is decentralised The nodes are hosted by individuals from anywhere across the globe.

By having an open-source code that anyone can access and by relying on a global network of individual hosts, Baride said, dVPNs prevent governments from blocking the server and IP addresses of known VPNs that have largely static servers.

Of course, there is nothing stopping governments simply unplugging the internet, Baride concluded.

However, as technologies such as Elon Musks ambitious Starlink project which aims to beam the internet to remote areas across the globe via satellites gains pace, the software developer suggests this could be combined with dVPNs to maintain constant communication.

We will be able to continue to talk to one another, to organise, and to show the outside world what is happening to us, he said.

Unless they shoot down these internet-providing satellites, they will never be able to silence our hopes for democracy and accountability again. That is our dream.

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Iraqs protests and the technology of resistance - Al Jazeera English

Amanat Ali Chaudhry

The four-day tour of war-torn Iraq by Pope Francis is a significant event at several levels. Undertaken amidst serious security concerns and at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the first-ever papal visit has brought to the fore the reality of present-day Iraq, as the country struggles to emerge from the bouts of violence perpetrated by the United States as well as the dreaded Islamic State (IS).

To begin with, Iraq is back to the mainstream of global conversation. The coverage of the tour has highlighted the formidable challenges Baghdad has faced ever since the Bush administration committed the monstrous folly of attacking Iraq in 2003.

The coalition forces may have taken out Saddam Hussein. The consequences of the Western military misadventure have, however, proven to be far deadlier than anticipated. The aftermath of Saddams fall has led to the transformation of the geostrategic landscape of the Middle East. The unleashing of the dynamics, deep and impactful as they are, has deepened the fault-lines and ushered in a new era of competition and rivalry for regional dominance.

Received by the Iraqi prime minister with the red carpet rolled out and people lining up the roads, 84-year-old Pope Francis emphasized Iraqs identity as the cradle of civilization, a clear reference to the countrys religious diversity and rich heritage.

The engagements of the Pope were structured in a manner as to send a symbolic, yet powerful, message to a world that has increasingly been shaken by the faith-based violence and a sense of deep acrimony, fuelled by suspicions and hatred of each other.

Pope Francis rightly condemned the senseless violence and called for an immediate end to extremism. Walking through the streets of once-thriving Mosuls Old City that boasted of ancient mosques and churches standing in complete harmony, the pontiff, visibly moved by the sight of the destroyed buildings and desolate streets, reiterated his conviction that fraternity is more durable than fratricide.

Mosul which has borne the brunt of heavy fighting between the Iraqi security forces and IS fighters is a picture-perfect of the destruction of not just the physical infrastructure but also of the deep bonds of captivating culture, rich civilization and faiths.

In a visit to the ancient site of Ur, the birthplace of Hazrat Ibrahim (ra), the prophet revered equally by Muslims, Christians and Jews, Pope Francis made the most telling statement. He condemned violence perpetrated in the name of God as the greatest blasphemy. He went on to add that Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion. We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion.

This powerful defence of religion comes at a time when different faiths, mainly Islam, have been held responsible for spawning violence and terrorism in the world. The narrative against religion has been woven in a manner so as to shield the role of the industrial-military complex, and powerful political establishments in causing armed conflicts in pursuit of grand strategic and economic objectives. The peculiar framing of discourse legitimizing the war on terror and justifying the attack on Iraq is a case in point.

Another noteworthy aspect of the anti-religion campaign is the keenness to unquestioningly accept a view that claims to justify violence in the name of God. The permeation of such an attitude, particularly in the West, has given birth to the stigmatization of an entire Muslim community that has found itself on the wrong side of mainstream public opinion that has been shaped by populist political discourses. The acts of terrorism perpetrated by the likes of Al-Qaeda and IS have been used handily in support of such framing as denounces Islam.

One of the prime objectives of the papal visit was to express solidarity with the fast-dwindling Christian population in Iraq. In a span of almost two decades from 2003 onward, the number of Christian Iraqis has reduced from around 1.5 million population to a little over 250,000 people. The drastic fall in numbers caused by armed conflict, migration, and the targeting of the community by the IS has brought down the population from 10 percent during the mid-20th century to nearly one percent now.

Enunciating that the religious diversity of Iraq was a precious resource on which to draw, not an obstacle to eliminate, the Pope urged a greater role for the members of the Christian community in the countrys public life. He added that the age-old presence of Christians in the land, and their contributions to the life of the nation constitute a rich heritage that they wish to continue to place at the service of all.

The chief highlight of the historic visit was an important meeting between Pope Francis and influential Shiite leader Ayatollah Sistani in the city of Al-Najaf. The 90-year-old Iraqi leader has been pivotal to Iraqs successful fight against IS whose religious edict resulted in swelling the ranks of the Iraqi forces. His support is considered critical to the longevity of the governments in Iraq.

A supporter of religious minorities, Ayatollah Sistani has been a defender of their political rights and believes in the separation of politics from religion. The meeting between two respected religious leaders conveyed a message of unity and inclusion.

While the Pope was grateful to the top Iraqi cleric for speaking up together with the Shiite community in defence of those most vulnerable and persecuted amid the violence and great hardships, Sistanis office described him as stating that Iraqi Christians deserve to live like all Iraqis in security and peace and with all constitutional rights.

The show of unity with the mainly Shia-majority country comes on the heels of a similar initiative led by the Pope when a joint declaration with the Sunni leaders and scholars of Al-Azhar University was signed in

Abu Dhabi in 2019.

The papal visit to Iraq, a country torn by extremism, terrorism and sectarian conflicts, represents a solid public outreach effort to help bridge the religious divide, promote interfaith dialogue, and convey a sense of reassurance to the Iraqis in general and the members of the Christian community, in particular. More than that, it aims to build bridges, promote pluralism and highlight convergences between the followers of Islam and Christianity.

Pope Francis assertion that we are descendants of Abraham and the representatives of different religions and that like the great Patriarch, we need to take concrete steps is carefully employed to appeal to the common roots of both Muslims and Christians. Ibrahim Al-Marashi, while writing for the Al Jazeera website, stated that By using Abrahams birthplace as a setting for his speech, the Pope stressed the concept of the Abrahamic faiths as a single tradition.

There was a time in the early 1990s when the concept of the clash of civilizations found traction after the Western model of liberal democracy vanquished communism and singled out Islam as the next adversary.

While there were some misgivings about the framing of the discourse in terms of ideological binaries, what followed the catastrophic events of 9/11 renewed the conversation. Those purporting to speak on behalf of Muslims leveraged the clash of civilizations argument to attract people to their ranks in what they interpreted as a holy war.

The notion of the faith-inspired clash has got a new lease of life as the dynamics of popular nationalism, often expressed in religious terms, shape the terms of engagement between Muslims and the host Western governments.

In this background, the visit of Pope Francis not only inspires hope but also offers a blueprint of a more formal engagement that can be institutionalized to challenge the theory of the clash of civilizations and replace it with that of dialogue among civilizations.

The writer, a Chevening scholar, studied International Journalism at the University of Sussex.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @Amanat222

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The Pope in Iraq - The News International

After frantic meetings in Baghdad, Beirut and Tehran, Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitaries have agreed to stop attacks against US forces in Iraq on the condition that Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi formally demands an Americanwithdrawal, officials and factioncommanders told Middle East Eye.

Kadhimi must tell Washington that the pullout has to be completed within 12 months, they added. Sources said it is likely that Kadhimi will comply and make the formal request.

On 1 March, the armed factions announced the end of an unofficial armistice with US forces in Iraq that had largely held since October, despite a few violations.

'If any of these parties violates the agreement, then this means that it is a personal act and the perpetrator is considered outside the consensus, and it is dealt with on this basis'

- Iraqi negotiator

Previously, attacks on US troops and their western allies in the anti-Islamic State (IS) group military coalition had been routine, as the paramilitaries sought to push the United States from Iraq.

However, a rocket attack on a military base in Erbil last month prompted the US to launch air strikes on a position just inside the Syrian border occupied by Kataeb Hezbollah, the paramilitary group most hostile to Washington, and Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada, a smaller Shia faction.

Although the Iraqi armed factions declared that they had nothing to do with the Erbil attack, which killed a military contractor and wounded nine others, including a US soldier, the Pentagon pointed the finger of blame at Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada.

The tit-for-tat attacks between the two sides resulted in a 3 March raid on Ain al-Assad, a base in western Anbar province that hosts the largest US presence, with at least10 short-range BM-21 Grad missiles launched at the troops there.

The Iraqi military said the attack did not cause any casualties, but the Pentagon announced the next day that a US contractorhad died after suffering a heart attack during the raid.

Kadhimi's embattled government, which has sought to limit the paramilitaries power and been targeted by them in return, has attempted to limit the fallout from such skirmishes and buy time for Washington and Tehran to begin negotiations to resume the 2015 nuclear deal, hoping they will calm the region.

Erbil attack a warning to Iraqi Kurds, not the US, say Shia commanders

This latest de-escalation agreement was made by a group of faction commanders known as the Coordinating Committee for the Resistance Factions,and the Iraqi government, sources said.

It stipulates that all attacks must cease and in return Kadhimi will send a letter to the United Nations Security Council asking for the US-led coalitions mission in Iraq to end, two of the parties that concluded the agreement told MEE.

Iranian and Lebanese parties, as well as an international organisation operating in Iraq, helped bring the sides together, "one acting as a guarantor and another as a negotiator", as an Iraqi official put it.

"Currently, all concerned parties [leaders of the Iranian-backed armed factions and the US forces] have agreed to calm," one of the Iraqi negotiators told MEE.

"If any of these parties violates the agreement, then this means that it is a personal act and the perpetrator is considered outside the consensus, and it is dealt with on this basis."

Middle East Eye has asked the US-led coalition for comment, but received no response by the time of publication.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

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EXCLUSIVE: Iraq paramilitaries agree to stop attacks on US if Kadhimi demands withdrawal - Middle East Eye

BAGHDAD - The father of a missing Iraqi anti-government activist who waged a public campaign trying to bring to account a militia suspected of abducting him was shot and killed on Wednesday, a human rights monitor and security officials said.

Jasb Hattab Aboud died of a gunshot wound to the head at 6 p.m. in the southern city of Amara, said Ali al-Bayati, a spokesman for the semi-official Independent Human Rights Commission, and a security official. Both cited preliminary investigations and said more details would be forthcoming. Authorities have not identified the gunman.

The security official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Aboud was uncommonly vocal in his search for his son Ali Jasb, a lawyer who was one of a number of activists who vanished at the height of Iraq's mass anti-government demonstrations in October 2019. Aboud publicly accused a powerful Iran-backed militia of kidnapping him and even took the dangerous step of seeking to take its leader to court.

Other families of missing activists were more reserved, often fearing reprisal if they spoke out.

Jasb, who has not been heard from since surveillance footage captured his abduction on October 8 in Amara in the province of Missan, came to symbolize the campaign of terror waged by militias, widely believed to have abducted dozens of prominent activists and to have killed more than 60.

The protests were largely silenced by a combination of the coronavirus and a violent crackdown by security forces and militias that, according to the commission, killed more than 500 people.

Aboud was a determined figure who for a time was a fixture on local media, reminding the Iraqi public about his missing son and seeking justice. He routinely took the six-hours-long bus journey from his rural town to Baghdad to meet his lawyer. Always, he carried the documents that he believed would deliver justice in a court of law.

The Associated Press followed Aboud's attempts to push a criminal case against the powerful commander of Ansar Allah al-Awfia, one of the more extreme pro-Iranian militias. The militia was incorporated under the state-sponsored umbrella group, the Popular Mobilization Forces, created to fight the Islamic State group in 2014.

At every turn, the criminal case revealed the weakness of Iraq's judicial institutions vis-a-vis the growing power of militia groups.

Initial proceedings in Missan's courts came to a standstill when testimony revealed a link between the abduction and the head of al-Awfia, local commander Haidar al-Gharawi. Frustrated by the delay, Aboud transferred the case to Baghdad where an investigative judged deemed there was insufficient evidence to push the case forward.

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Outspoken Father of Missing Activist Killed in Iraq's South - Voice of America

The visit of Pope Francis to Iraq, concluded in the beginning of this week, has led to speculation about its possible motives and urgency. Most agree on one thing: It is not politically calculated. Taking cues from his earlier gestures, one can safely say that the current Pope wouldnt do a Pope John Paul II, whose political interventions during the Cold War in many ways served the interests of the Western Bloc led by the US. This visit, though, is a culmination of a series of failed efforts of the last two decades to bring a Pope to the birthplace of Abraham, that were initiated during the tenure of Pope John Paul II in 2000.

The theory that connects the visit of the head of Catholic Church to one of the major theatres of the US-Iran rivalry with the attempt of the US President Joe Biden to patch up the USs strained relationship with Iran appears to be flawed. More likely is the analysis by historian Ibrahim al-Marashi, who compares Pope Franciss visit to the journey that St. Francis of Assisi, a Catholic preacher and mystic, made some 800 years ago to the Middle East to heal the wounds that Crusade-induced violence caused in both Christian and Muslim societies. One of the highlights of St. Franciss trip was his meeting with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, nephew of Saladin, who led the Muslim army against the Crusader states in the Levant. Pope Francis, on his part, began his journey with meeting one of the worlds leading Sunni clerics, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in 2017 and making a historic call for a cross-faith commitment to human fraternity.

St. Franciss journey in the 13th century, though partially successful in terms of promoting peace and reconciliation between two warring communities, resulted in re-orienting policies of various missionary groups, including his own Franciscan order, towards a peaceful coexistence with Muslims.

Today, there is hostility and mutual distrust between the people of two major faiths. The rise of cultural Christianity, a proxy for Islamophobia and hostility towards migrants, makes the situation worse in parts of Europe and the United States. The crisis in the Islamic world deepens with the emergence of movements with a sectarian vision. The Popes interventions at this critical time, therefore, have more than a symbolic value.

With his efforts to reach out to various sects of Christianity in the East, the Pope intends to present a different, though not new, version of Christianity, which is more inclusive, non-denominational, non-sectarian and non-Europeanised. What one can reasonably assume from this move is his wish to make Christianity more appealing not just to Christians in the east, but to the followers of all Abrahamic religions. That is perhaps why Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, found a pivotal position in his itinerary.

What figured recurrently in the pontiffs speech was the necessity of reviving an Abrahamic tradition for the common future of the communities. In Ur, the Pope said, we seem to have returned home. At many places, he greeted gatherings from different Semitic faiths with slogans such as You are all brothers, the words of Matthews gospel. This can be read as a significant move to create a counter-narrative to the theses presenting Islam as the other, alien to the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West.

Prior to visiting Iraq, the Pope travelled to Jordan and Palestine in 2014, Egypt in 2017 and the UAE and Morocco in 2019. He met many prominent Muslim scholars for initiating interfaith dialogue. All his positive gestures have created resonances in the Muslim world so far. But the fact remains that the sectarian violence in Iraq is intimately associated with the colonial past of the country; and the cynical use of religion by colonial forces to protect their own interests. A move which does not address this past, therefore, may not yield the desired result.

This article first appeared in the print edition on March 12, 2021 under the title The Popes message. The writer is professor and director, School of Gandhian Thought and Development Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala.

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The Pope in Iraq: Fraternity between all faiths - The Indian Express