Leadership Council for Human Rights

The following report was written by Rhona Davis, who is currently teaching English in Erbil, Iraq.  Rhona conducts periodic interviews with individuals in and around Erbil in an effort to assess the human rights situation there.  This report, from July 2008, focuses on the abuses suffered by members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) who now live in a refugee camp near Koya, Iraq. 

The PDKI was forcibly removed from the border areas between Iran and Iraq in 1994 by the Kurdish parties in Iraq due to pressure from the Iranian government.  The party and other Iranian Kurdish groups have collectively lost some 300 people in Iraqi Kurdistan because of the actions of Iranian agents active in that area between 1991 and 1997.  For more information on the party, click here. Read the rest of this entry →

The following report was written by Rhona Davis, who is currently teaching English in Erbil, Iraq.  Rhona conducts periodic interviews with individuals in an around Erbil in an effort to better assess the human rights situation there.  This report, written in February 2008, concerns the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Erbil area.

It’s just gone nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning and I’m accompanying the mobile team for Protection Assistance Centre (PAC) on a field trip to visit IDPs in Shaways, a town a few miles north of Erbil. PAC, set up in 2005, is part of Public Aid Organisation (PAO), a local NGO, and is funded by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). Its target groups are IDPs, refugees, vulnerable people, women at risk and disabled people. Its role is to collect information on IDPs and refugees, which is sent to UNHCR, and to give immediate aid, such as food, heaters and blankets etc. They also give legal aid. Read the rest of this entry →