Huquqalinsan.org

Huquqalinsan.org "was founded in 1993 under the name Organization for Human Rights in Iraq (OHRI) by a group of Iraqi professionals, academics, and educators. It was one of many organizations that came about in the wake of the Gulf War, when many Iraqi expatriates, abandoning years of civic apathy, decided to start advocating issues that were important to them."

"The organization's initial thrust was to inform, and so for the first two years it published Rights, a newsletter devoted to human rights issues in Iraq."

"In Feb. 1994, the organization also held a one-day symposium in Washington, DC, on "Sovereignty, State Power, and Human Rights." This topic was timely: the Iraqi regime had just started draining the Southern Marshes, and Dr. Hussain Shahristani, the symposium's main speaker, presented incontrovertible evidence on what Max van der Stoel, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iraq, called the environmental crime of the century."

"Perhaps OHRI's most enduring legacy is the Center for the Disappeared it set up in Arbil in Northern Iraq, and that remained in operation for a period of two years. The center was closed when the regime took control of the city in 1996. Fortunately, the records of the disappeared that had been gathered were saved, and now form the nucleus of the Mafqud database."

"Mafqud.org is the organization's latest project. It was initiated in 2000, and officially launched in Sept. 2002. Because this project requires the collaboration of other Iraqi human rights organizations, including one well-established organization with the same name, it was decided to change OHRI's name to Huquqalinsan.org. This change of name reflects the organization's focus on the World Wide Web." 

Contact

 * Huquqalinsan.org can be contacted at:
 * 955 Massachusetts Ave. #242
 * Cambridge, MA 02139
 * Fax/Voicemail: (+1-617) 588-0224
 * Email: info (AT) mafqud.org
 * Web: http://www.mafqud.org/en/partners/hio/intro.htm