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Iraqis have been protesting since early October against the dysfunctional and corrupt political system installed by the United States after the 2003 occupation. Unlike previous waves of protests that began in 2011, this protest was spontaneous and not organized by any party.

The most common and passionate slogan throughout these protests has been, We want a homeland. It reflected the anger and alienation Iraqis felt toward a political class beholden to external influence (Iran and the United States) and oblivious to its peoples demands.

The regimes brutal suppression and killing of peaceful protesters fueled Iraqis anger, widening and intensifying the protests and strikes across Iraq. It also radicalized the tone and demands of protesters who have been calling for an overhaul of the entire system, rather than cosmetic change. The resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Nov. 29 did nothing to quiet the protesters. And the regimes violence continues unabated.

More than 500 protesters have been killed. I try to find out their names and catch a glimpse of their faces. I cant keep up. Death seizes them in a flash and delivers their bodies to the darkness of the grave. But it also illuminates their names, faces and life stories, making them ever more familiar to those of us who are viscerally connected to Iraq, whether we live there or in a distant country.

I did know Safa al-Sarray, a 26-year-old aspiring poet and amateur artist, very well. He wrote to me nine years ago on social media about one of my novels. We kept corresponding. I loved his wit and sense of humor, and his insightful posts about life and politics in Iraq.

Safa was a precocious, passionate young man and a voracious reader, particularly of poetry. He grew up in a large working-class family in Baghdad. His father had died when he was quite young. He worked hard three days a week as a construction worker and porter while studying at the University of Technology in Baghdad to make ends meet and to support his family.

In 2011, a wave of protests against the corruption and sectarianism of the Iraqi regime swept through the country. Safa, who was 18 at the time, joined his compatriots seeking change. He was at the forefront of every single wave of protests in the years that followed. Despite being harassed and detained several times, he would be back on the street for the next protest.

I worried about him and would check on him every time protests broke out to make sure he was safe. We are staying here in Tahrir, he would write, referring to Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, where the protesters have been gathering. He knew the dangers he faced. He once wrote to me wondering when he might meet the gratuitous death waiting for me in my homeland. He loved Iraq and would go to sleep at night thinking of what he could do to change it.

I met Safa for the first time in February at the Baghdad Book Fair. He came to my book signing and was as charming and charismatic in person. We met again for breakfast on my last day in Baghdad. Safa had an undergraduate degree in computer networking, but like hundreds of thousands of young Iraqis, he couldnt find employment in his field.

Over breakfast he told me that hed recently started working as an ardhahalchi, or a scribe, writing letters and filling out forms for citizens going before courts. He would set up his chair and table every morning outside a courthouse in Baghdad. Were there any interesting stories that you came across? I asked. It is just a traffic court, he said with a smile. The letters he had to write were quite prosaic, mostly about mundane accidents or transfer of ownership.

Safa was 26, but he was using a cane and grimaced with pain when he moved. He spoke of the pain killers he was taking and the costly physical therapy. During the protests in the summer of 2018 he had received messages on social media from regime thugs warning him to stay away. He ignored them at first. A few days later plainclothes security personnel detained him and tortured him to extract information on other protesters. He said that the memory of his mother, Thanwa, and her strength helped him withstand the pain and remain steadfast in moments of weakness.

He was very close to Thanwa, who died of cancer in 2017, and wrote about her suffering and resilience. He called himself Thanwas Son. Shifting the emphasis away from the patrilineal to the matrilineal was an act of poetic resistance against social norms.

Safa was fiercely independent and critical of the intellectual elite and the media personalities who had betrayed the protesters, hijacked previous protests and made back-room deals with political parties.

He was an aspiring poet, an artist. He donated the money from his art to an orphanage. His heart was a garden for all. I have been thinking of some verses he wrote: Peoples sadness is my sadness/Their feasts are mine/Let the wellspring of my life flow onto their deserts/These flowers in my soul are gardens of people.

When the Iraqi uprising began in October, Safa was at the forefront once again. He recited poetry and urged protesters to remain peaceful but never give up.

On Oct. 28 I messaged Safa: I heard you were injured. Let me know youre O.K. There was no response. A tear-gas canister fired intentionally and directly at the crowds by the riot police had pierced his head while he was protesting peacefully in Tahrir Square. He was taken to the hospital. He died a few hours later. I cried when I saw the footage of his coffin circling the square, surrounded by fellow protesters bidding farewell to a hero.

Some years ago, I wrote a poem about those who die for freedom and justice. I never thought that I was writing it prematurely for my friend.

Martyrs do not go to paradiseThey leaf through the heavenly bookeach in their own wayas a birda staror a cloudThey appear to us every dayand cryfor uswe, who are stillin this hell they tried to extinguishwith their blood.

A few weeks ago, I saw a photograph of a white dove perched on the coffin of one of those murdered by the regime near Tahrir Square. Was that you, Safa?

I will visit your grave when I go to Iraq, but I know that you are not only there. Your face is on so many walls, banners, T-shirts, and your spirit is everywhere. Your brothers and sisters, Thanwas children, are still fighting for the new Iraq you dreamed of and loved.

Sinan Antoon (@sinanantoon) is the author, most recently, of the novel The Book of Collateral Damage.

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I Will Visit Your Grave When I Go to Iraq - The New York Times

For our series World of Worship, we sent correspondents around the globe to show us how different people celebrate their faith and honor religious traditions. In our first report, we head to the Middle East.

In recent years, Iraq has suffered terrible violence, often inflamed by religious differences. But in a country where worship can come at a heavy cost, CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata discovered an unlikely oasis hidden in the mountains: an ancient Christian monastery.

The Rabban Hormizd Monastery, one of the oldest of its kind in the world, was founded almost 1,400 years ago. Carved into and out of the very rock on which it rests, the temple overlooks the vast plains of northern Iraq.

Its namesake, Rabban Hormizd, traveled from Persia. He lived as a hermit for almost 30 years, living an austere life of isolation in the network of caves that push deep into the mountainside. Over time, more monks made the pilgrimage, settling in its labyrinth.

"Christians are an important part of the community here in Iraqi Kurdistan," said 21-year-old Miriam Salih, who traveled to the monastery with other Iraqi history students. "They've been here for thousands of years."Over the centuries, the monastery has been more than a house of worship. It's been a sanctuary, a safe place in a region that has had more than its fair share of upheaval. The Mongols, the Kurds, the Ottomans and the Turks all overran the territory at one point or another, yet it somehow survived.

But the biggest threat came in modern times. When ISIS rampaged throughout the region in 2014, the Islamic extremists targeted anything to do with Christianity. Churches that stood for centuries were ruined in a matter of seconds. When ISIS overran nearby Mosul, tens of thousands of terrified Christians fled, escaping to other Christian towns in the region. At one point, the terrorist group was just a 10-minute drive away from the Christian town of Alqosh that sits at the base of the mountain. They never made it any closer, but the threat is still felt today.

At the monastery, an armed bodyguard follows the priest everywhere. The head monk, Father Denha Toma, knows they have to plan for the worst. He was in Mosul when ISIS invaded five years ago. "What do you think ISIS would have done if they had reached this place?" D'Agata asked Toma.

"Wherever they saw a cross they smashed it," he said. "They erased any traces of Christianity. Even the Virgin Mary there used to be a statue of her. They chopped the head off and left the rest of the statue standing there. If they had reached here, they would have certainly destroyed this monastery."

Before the U.S.-led invasion, the insurgency and ISIS, there were around 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. There are now barely 250,000. In fact there are now more Chaldean Catholics, the most followed denomination among Iraqi Christians, in the United States than in Iraq.

The regional Archbishop recently described Christianity in Iraq as being "perilously close to extinction," which means one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in existence now remains on a cliff-edge.

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Rabban Hormizd Monastery in Iraq: Christian temple survives centuries of upheaval, but threat from ISIS is still felt - CBS News

A group of armed men wearing black uniforms stormed into my house in Baghdad and abducted me, Iraqi blogger Shojaa Fares al-Khafaji told me a few days after his early-morning kidnapping by an Iraqi militia in October. They took me to a remote location overlooking the Tigris River and questioned me about my work, my family, and even my car. They knew I have a blog and I am certain that was the main reason for my abduction.

Khafajis captors ultimately released him, but urged him to keep his mouth shut. He has chosen to live up to his first namewhich is Arabic for braveand continue writing his blog in the face of government repression. But his ordeal was not an unusual one for an Iraqi journalist, and most are not as determined to risk their lives to continue reporting.

Clean Brotherhood, Khafajis popular blog, reports chiefly on politics and corruption in Iraq. It has also covered the ongoing mass protests over unemployment, a lack of basic services, and government corruption that broke out in Baghdad in October and have spread to other southern Iraqi cities. He has published footage of security forces using tear gas against protesters and pictures of protesters who have suffered beatings.

The Iraqi authorities have been trying to avoid drawing publicity to the protests by creating a de facto media blackout. They have repeatedly shut down the internet, raided and banned broadcasters, and forcibly barred journalists from covering the demonstrations, leaving the world largely in the dark about the fate of millions of people. Iraqis have had enough of such treatment. Barely five years ago, armed men in black uniforms under the banner of the Islamic State took control of television and radio stations, rounded up journalists, and created a monopoly over information in the city of Mosul. The international community should push for a post-Islamic State Iraq in which information flows freely, empowering Iraqis to shape their countrys future.

The Iraqi governments heavy-handed security response to the protests has left more than 400 people dead and nearly 20,000 injured, spreading a widespread sense of fear of the armed forces among local reporters. This is especially true of local militia groups, which allege that journalists are instigating the violence. Two journalists have been reported killed so far. (Iraq has historically been one of the deadliest countries for journalists: Some 188 have been killed since 1994, according to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists.) Security forces have briefly detained, beaten, and seized equipment from reporters to prevent them from covering the protests. Several journalists have left Baghdad for either Iraqi Kurdistan or abroad for fear of militias. Many journalists feel persecuted, said Jumana Mumtaz, a board member of the independent National Union of Journalists in Iraq. They have left Baghdad because they are afraid of the attacks on broadcasters and the assaults and arrests of colleagues. Even those who left Baghdad are afraid of speaking out. Without media or internet, nobody will know whats happening in Iraq.

Iraq relied heavily on Iran-backed militias to defeat the Islamic State. After they helped drive the group from Iraq in December 2017, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization containing mostly Shiite militias, was integrated into the national armed forces and placed under the direct authority of the prime minister. Iraqi journalists at the time voiced their concern about the growing political and economic influence of the militias and the threat it posed to press freedom.

Militias belonging to the PMF have taken control of the trade in scrap metal from destroyed buildings and vehicles and its transport from Mosul to Iraqi Kurdistan or southern Iraq. They have also gained control over large state-owned construction and engineering companies and are suspected of imposing taxes on commerce and of involvement in oil smuggling in Mosul and Basra. But they have not only cornered parts of the economy. They have also successfully infiltrated Iraqi politics through the Fatah Alliance, which won 48 seats in the 2018 parliamentary election, becoming Iraqs second-largest bloc after Muqtada al-Sadrs Sairun bloc. The Fatah Alliance, which is headed by the leader of the Iran-backed Badr Organization, Hadi al-Amiri, includes the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah, and Kataib al-Imam Ali. Militiamen from these organizations have run as candidates and won seats in the Iraqi Parliament in the 2018 election.

Iraqi journalists see militias as the main challenge to press freedom in the country. Fear of militias, and impunity for crimes against journalists in Iraq, can lead to self-censorship, all the more so in the wake of the slaying of Arkan Sharifi, a cameraman for a Kurdish broadcaster, who was stabbed to death by militiamen in 2017. Journalists in Basra faced death threats, beatings, and intimidation from local militiasforcing several of them to leave the countrymerely for covering 2018 protests against deteriorating living standards in the city, where popular anger at growing Iranian influence resulted in the torching of media outlets, militias headquarters, and the Iranian consulate.

Despite the governments crackdown on press freedom and the brutal crushing of the protests, protesters camped out in Baghdads Tahrir Square have created their own newspaper to circumvent the information blackout and the narrative spread by the state-owned media, which barely mentions the unrest, and to air the protesters demands, including the call for an end to foreign influence in Iraq.

The United States and the European Union have both condemned the governments repressive tactics and have publicly supported the protesters right to express their grievances. The special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, even visited Baghdads Tahrir Square to condemn the violence and call for a national dialogue.

While these statements and gestures are steps in the right direction, the international community should place Iraqi authorities under greater scrutiny to prevent further bloodshed and combat the assault on Iraqs democratic institutions, escalating sanctions and cuts in foreign and defense aid if state violence against protesters and media continues. The United States and other Western democracies invaded Iraq in 2003 with the stated goal of establishing democracy. They continue to provide billions of dollars in military and foreign aid to fight insurgent groups in an effort to stabilize the country, when in fact more determined and continuous support for democracy and its institutions, including free media and human rights, are necessary for a stable Iraq.

At a time when the balance of power in the post-Islamic State Middle East is rapidly changing, the survival of Iraqs fledgling democracy depends on the preservation of liberal institutions such as the free media. If it is to survive amid a complex regional and global power struggle for influence in the Middle Eastunderscored by several deep socioeconomic challengesthe international community must do its utmost to help Iraqi journalists maintain the free flow of information. This will enable an open, public, and honest debate about the challenges facing the country and, more importantly, how best to resolve them.

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Democracy in Iraq Depends on Press Freedom - Foreign Policy

Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas Eve mass at the Grand Immaculate Church in al-Hamdaniya, near Mosul, December 24, 2018. (Khalid al-Mousily/Reuters)We owe it to the people there to do so.

Impeachment is on the brain and, it would seem, not much else. Our limited attention spans dont seem to allow it. But we had better make room for the Iraqi people. At the start of the month, Chaldean archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil visited New York and spoke at the United Nations Security Council about the situation in his native Iraq. Warda has been housing and caring for people, primarily Christian, who fled ISIS in Mosul in 2014. Hes been working to secure some semblance of a future for them and has established a Catholic university there. (While in the United States this month he also announced a partnership program with the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.)

In his speech on December 3, he said, At stake is whether Iraq will finally emerge from the trauma of Saddam and the past 16 years to become a legitimate, independent and functioning country, or whether it will become a permanently lawless region, open to proxy wars between other countries and movements, and a servant to the sectarian demands of those outside Iraq.

Warda was hopeful: If the protest movement is successful in creating a new government, with a new, civil constitution, respecting the diversity of its religions and cultures, one not based in Sharia but instead based upon the fundamental concepts of freedom for all, freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written by this organization where we all sit today, then a time of hope can still exist for the long-suffering Iraqi people. Despite everything, the Iraqi people love their country, and they want it back.

And the archbishop was also solemn. He said that if the protesters were not successful if the international community stands by and allows the murder of innocents to continue Iraq will probably fall into civil war, scattering millions of young religious minorities from Iraq. In the crisis and the genocide of 2014, over 4 million Iraqis, Muslims, Yazidis, and Christians fled to the Kurdistan region, seeking refuge from the evil of ISIS, but still remained within the country, he noted. In another major conflict, we are likely to see the people flee from Iraq for good. We are indeed at perhaps the last chance for our country.

His speech and, really, plea to the international community but to the West in a particular way was for support, an entreaty not to look away, not to be reckless in interventions, as we have been elsewhere and certainly there, in Iraq. Warda will tell you, as he intimated, that Christians and other religious minorities are not better because of the fall of Saddam Hussein, evil tyrant though he may have been. Warda is no apologist for Saddam; he simply explains how things have played out. The archbishop doesnt explicitly ask us to do penance, and yet it doesnt seem like that would be inappropriate. Serious attention to his assessment, at the very least, is overdue.

Im told that on account of his words at the United Nations, protesters have been seen with a photograph of him, a hero of their cause, on signs in Baghdads Tahrir Square.

When I had a long interview with Archbishop Warda in Toronto in 2016, he talked a little about the U.S. interventions in Iraq. (Warda was in Canada for the annual Knights of Columbus convention; the Knights were one of the private organizations coming to the aid of the Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities, to help fight for a future for the people in his care.) He was mad about it. Invading, he said, was a big mistake, but it was a tragedy when they left.

Democracy wasnt going to work in Iraq. There were too many complicating factors, including a deep-seated corruption. He has nothing against the concept, he just knows the brutal reality in the region too well. He understands the dynamics of the religious majority vis--vis the minorities. He also, just about every time Ive heard a word from his mouth, talks about the importance of protecting religious freedom also, about how urgent it is to have Christians in Iraq and the region. First of all, they belong there: They have been there since about the advent of Christianity. Thats only right and just, but also: They bring to the region a mercy that is absolutely needed its almost as if the land from its depths is crying for it! Christians at their best embody the mercy of Jesus in the gospels: willing to be crucified, that greatest act of love, which led to the Resurrection, that unprecedented act of hope that changed the course of history and human lives. It is good to have people of hope among you, wherever you are, but in a particular way in Iraq, and now, throughout the region.

The Washington Post just ran an alarming series about our last 18 years of intervention in Afghanistan. Weve made things worse, and thats just the beginning of the story. The news should, among other things, make us take Wardas words extra seriously. We must consider what weve done and stop looking away from the consequences of our policies, and from the hopes of a people.

About the ongoing protests in Iraq, Warda says: The young Christians of Iraq have been participants in these protests every day. They have been there because the protests have given them hope for a future, a future in which they belong as equal and contributing Iraqi citizens.

Warda points out that, although over 400 protesters have been killed, those protesting today remain nonviolent. About their goals and the urgency of their cause, he added: Along with the millions of other marginalized Iraqis, they look now to the international community for your action and support. Iraq, the country which has so often been harmed, now looks to you all for help. We believe we have a future, and we ask you not to turn away from us now. That should rattle and convict us. Their cause is just and we have a responsibility to support them. Whatever is going on domestically, lets not look away. We have a responsibility.

This column is based on oneavailable throughAndrews McMeel Universals Newspaper Enterprise Association.

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Do You Think about Iraq? - National Review

A mass grave containing the remains of 643 civilians has reportedly been discovered near a former ISIS battleground in Iraq with those inside believed to have been members of a Sunni tribe reportedly targeted by Iraqi militias.

Saudi news outletAl Arabiya said official sources had confirmed the bodies, found along the side of a road 5km north of Fallujah, belonged to the al-Muhamdah tribe a group who had disappeared in 2016 and hadnt been seen since.

The territory is believed to have been under the control of Iraqi soldiers under the banner of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, a conglomerate of militias accused by the US and Israel of being backed by Iran.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The militias were among many to be involved in the driving out of ISIS from the country and were key to the battle of Fallujah where they fought alongside Iraqi state forces to free the city from the terror groups militants in 2016.

However shortly after the liberation of the territory, Amnesty International said at least 643 men and boys had disappeared from the region in a series of abductions by men who identified as part of the PMU.

Oil spills in Qayyarah, northern Iraq

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Plumes of black smoke from burning oil wells hung over Qayyarah for several months

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

The burning of oil wells and oil spills have caused long term damage to the environment in Iraq

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Experts still do not know the extent of the damage from Isis's burning of oil wells and polluting of rivers

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Soil and water pollution is high in northern Iraq and impacting agriculture

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

There are fears if environmental damage is not taken seriously agriculture in northern Iraq could be destroyed

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Oil spills in Qayyarah, northern Iraq

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Plumes of black smoke from burning oil wells hung over Qayyarah for several months

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

The burning of oil wells and oil spills have caused long term damage to the environment in Iraq

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Experts still do not know the extent of the damage from Isis's burning of oil wells and polluting of rivers

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

Soil and water pollution is high in northern Iraq and impacting agriculture

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

There are fears if environmental damage is not taken seriously agriculture in northern Iraq could be destroyed

Wim Zwijnenburg/PAX

They organisation said the civilians were held at a location they described as the yellow house, where they were tortured and held without food or water. Survivors said they were beaten around the head and body, while being accused of belonging to ISIS.

One survivor told the NGO: They didnt give us anything to drink for the first day; on the second they brought a small bottle for 10 people. They took about 300 of us to the truck; it was dirty and smelled repulsive.

I think it was used to transport farm animals before us. They handcuffed us two by two. One man died right there, I think from thirst and suffocation Others were taken out and then I could hear gunshots. Later I could also smell burning.

Following the conclusion of the battle against ISIS in the region, the grouping has strived to become an incorporated part of the Iraqi state - with the goals of the PMUs top brass increasingly shifting from the military to the political.

But international condemnation of the group has continued. While the predominantly Shia group is made up of multiple factions, a number of militias under the banner swear loyalty to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

In July Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who recently resigned, inviting the PMU to join the Iraqi military after the US urged the group to demobilise.

And in October Israel was accused of launching a number of drone strikes against the groups bases a claim not directly addressed by the state.

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Mass grave containing remains of 643 civilians discovered in Iraq - The Independent