* Sunni activist professor killed in Iraq (30 Oct 2006) * Dr. Issam Al-Rawi: the death of a distinguished academic and patriot (Dirk Adriaensens, 31 Oct 2006) *  Baghdad Bulletin: Death Stalks the Campus ( Time, 02 Nov 2006) * The Biography Of Martyr Dr. Isam Al-Rawi  (AMSI 14 March 2007)

 

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A leading Iraqi academic and prominent hardline Sunni political activist was fatally shot by three gunmen Monday as he was leaving his Baghdad home, police said.

The killers escaped in a car after gunning down Essam al-Rawi, head of the University Professor's Union and a senior member of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, according to police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq.

The association is a Sunni organization believed to have links to the insurgency raging against U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies. The group has boycotted elections and stood aside from the political process.

An association official confirmed the killing of al-Rawi, a geologist, saying he was behind the wheel of his car and had just left his home for the drive to work at Baghdad University accompanied by two bodyguards.

The gunmen drove in front of al-Rawi's car, forced it to stop, then sprayed it with automatic weapons fire, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. One of al-Rawi's bodyguards was killed and the other was wounded, the official said.

The association was independently investigating the killing and would issue a statement later, the official said.

Although al-Rawi was likely targeted because of his political views, Iraqi academics have increasingly fallen victim to the country's religious extremists and other violent groups. About 180 professors have been murdered and at least 3,250 have fled Iraq since the outbreak of widespread sectarian violence in February, the Higher Education Ministry said in August.

With law and order in free-fall, some professors have also been killed by students angered over poor grades or other grievances, or because of their past membership in the Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

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Dr. Issam Al-Rawi: the death of a distinguished academic and patriot

Dirk Adriaensens (31 Oct 2006)

”I am sure you have heard about the assassination of Dr Issam Al-Rawi. Dr Al-Rawi was the head of the Iraqi University Professors. He helped unveiling all the crimes committed against his colleagues by pro-government militias including Badr and Jaish Al-Mahdi and other security gangs. His death is a great loss. He refused to leave, even though like the others he was threatened many times to leave Iraq. He felt that he was mostly needed to protect his colleagues to keep the Iraqi universities going on in this critical time of his beloved country. Dr Al-Rawi got killed because he believed that one day things would get better in Iraq and he has worked hard to see that day coming. I guess his assassination concludes how far that day is!!”

Dr. Issam Al Rawi was a major source for our list of murdered Iraqi academics, and he was a bell-ringer about the dreadful situation of the Iraqi academics, and thus a source of inspiration for our campaign about the Iraqi academics. Read the article Approximately 300 academics have been killed - 17 Jan 2005, written one year before we started our campaign. 

The following information is directly from the closest circle to Dr Issam Al Rawi. 

Just a while before being attacked, Al-Rawi was interviewed TV urging the Iraqis to comply with Mecca Code leaving aside the sectarian violence. He was attacked in Al-Dawoodi neighborhood, west Baghdad, where his house is, shortly after leaving his home for Baghdad University. Two other profs were with him; the both were wounded. The attack took place monday morning 30 October.  

According to his friends and family, the Death Squads were after his assassination. Here are some facts to prove this accusation.

Dr. Issam Al Rawi used to travel around without bodyguards.  In the same article Approximately 300 academics have been killed Dr. Al Rawi stated: "I deal with other human beings in a very normal way. I can't deal with them normally if I'm carrying a pistol, or if I have guards behind me." In the same article, Dr. Al Rawi says: “In a country with distinct political, ethnic and religious fault lines, the university killings seem to follow no pattern. The dead have been Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Arabs, and supporters of various political parties. "They have a common thing: they are Iraqis,"

Monday morning, while leaving his house, a white four wheel drive vehicle blocked his car, then began shooting him. The vehicle, a Land Cruiser 2004, is almost always used by the high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Interior and this vehicle is the “trade mark” of the Shiite death squads backed by some high-ranking officers and officials inside the ministry. There were four persons in the Land Cruiser: the driver, one who was protecting the other two who shot Dr. Al-Rawi. The car escaped in front of a National Guards check point toward Al-Mansour area.

Many previous reports confirmed that the former minister of the interior, the minister of finance now, Bayan Jabr and the former Prime Minister Al-Jaafari, gave tens of such vehicles to the death squads. 

Additionally I would like to point out some other background facts:

• The occupation forces and the “Iraqi” Special Police Forces raided his office (the League of the Iraqi University Professors, which was established by him to defend the professors’ rights and lives) on Oct 19. The Iraqi special police forces are almost Shiites; many reports confirm its links with death squads). He issued a communiqué on Oct 28 condemning the raid, that damaged the offices: the doors were broken, the library was messed up; the office of Dr. Al-Rawi, the president of the league and his deputy office were searched. He finished the communiqué by saying, “we are putting in front of the honest people in the world and the patriot Iraqis some of the acts of the alleged democracy and liberation.”
• He taught in Erbil University from the late eighties until April 2003; there he established relations with the Islamic Kurdish parties; he kept this relationship until his martyrdom. The two leading Kurdish parties PUK of Talabani and PDK of Barzani have no good relation with the Islamic Kurds, who are opposing those parties’ relations with US and Israel.
• Many parties in Iraq; especially Al-Qaeda and the Mahdy army are trying to shut down the educational system in Iraq, while Al-Rwai was insisting to go to the school of science, geology department, where he was a prof. (by the way: the first PhD in geology at Baghdad University was given to Dr. Issam Al-Rawi in the late seventies).

 

Those criminals who killed Dr. Issam Al-Rawi, hit many birds with one stone: 

·          They killed the most moderate voice of the Association of Muslim Scholars;

·          they killed a leading Sunni personality who used to visit and talk with the Shiite clerics;

·          and they killed the professor who led the organisation that used to defend the professors; thus the message is clear:  the whole profs are an open target. 

Another Iraqi wrote to us: 

Friends may be interested to know that Dr Al-Rawi was murdered days after he appeared on Al-Jazeera, severely and courageously criticising the Al-Qaida decision to declare their emirate in parts of Iraq. Whoever murdered him was targeting Iraqi unity, and it is important not to be rash with unsubstantiated accusations. 

Iraqi intellectuals are being killed on the daily base and nobody is saying a word. There is no investigation. 

A week before Al-Rawi, Dr Saad Shlash, a professor in journalism, was killed along with his wife in their home in Baghdad. He was the director of the editing board of Rayat Al Arab newspaper issued by the Arab Nationalists. 

By the way 20 media men and women were killed in Iraq in the last three weeks!!

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