A prominent female activist, Reham Yacoub was gunned down and three others were injured when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, on Wednesday.
This was the third incident this week in Iraq where gunmen targetted anti-government political activist after one activist was killed and four others had their car fired upon in a separate incident.
Reham had been an active activist since 2018 and had led various women’s marches.
After the assassination of an activist Tehseen Osama, a fresh series of protests took place for three days where protesters lobbed rocks and petrol bombs into governor’s house while the police retaliated by opening fire upon them.
Condemning Yacoub’s murder, The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in a statement said, “The continuing policy of impunity in Iraq encouraged the escalation of systematic assassinations outside the law, the most recent of which was the assassination of the prominent protest activist Reham Yacoub on Wednesday.”
The Euro-Med Monitor further said, “The perpetrators’ awareness of their impunity in assassination crimes will only lead them to commit more of them in the future, which requires the Iraqi authorities to take serious and practical action to not tolerate this kind of crimes against individuals.”
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, subsequently sacked the Basra police and national security chiefs on Monday and ordered an investigation into the violence which calmed protesters down.
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