“Lord of justice, Lord of justice,” with these words, civil activist Fatima al-Bahadli called the body of her son Ali Karim to his final resting place, hours after he was found murdered in Zubair district.
Al-Bahadli, who was awarded last year by the Irish organization Front Line Defenders on the occasion of the International Day of Human Rights Defenders, mourned her son in front of a hospital in Basra Governorate, southern Iraq. A number of Basra activists went to the home of the bereaved lady Fatima to support her in this painful incident, so they conveyed a message from her that she asked them to convey to the Iraqis and the world.
According to an activist who was present at the place and refused to give his name for fear of threats and assassination, Al-Bahadli revealed that she had received a threat a month before the crime, asking her to leave Basra, but she refused, and the threat’s response was that they killed her son.
According to information obtained by Al-Arabiya.net, the young man received two bullets in the head, and one in the chest, and he was stripped of all his belongings, including his mobile phone.
24 hours before the crime
and” Ali Karim, the murdered young man, born in the year 199 5, he disappeared for 24 hours before he was found dead, after informing his relatives that he was going to a swimming pool in Basra.
Even death in my country is different, either:
— Sanaa (@Sanaa5879213) July 25, 2021
The victim's phone was switched off at half past nine in the evening, until it was found on the side of a road bearing traces of gunshots.
For his part, Hassan Al-Sakini, the cousin of the murdered young man, explained to Al-Arabiya.net that assassinations have become normal actions for the influential parties in Iraq in general and Basra in particular, stressing that these parties do not want voices louder than theirs.
He also clarified that the murdered young man was not active in any field, and he paid the price of his mother’s human rights activist work, and his blood was a message to her. He confirmed that his aunt, the mother of the dead man, was in a very difficult psychological condition, stressing that she had received threats some time ago, and tried to report what happened with her, and after follow-up, she learned that the call came from an area near the Shatt al-Arab, and after that the transmission disappeared.
Fatima Al-Bahadli is an Iraqi human rights defender from the city of Basra in southern Iraq, and she is the president of the Al-Firdaws Association, an organization focused on protecting women and girls affected by war and promoting their role in building peace, and she has won numerous awards in the field of human rights.
