Iraq Project

About CPT Iraq

CPT initiated a long-term presence in Iraq in October 2002, six months before the beginning of the U.S. led invasion in March of 2003.

The primary focus of the team for eighteen months following the invasion was documenting and focusing attention on the issue of detainee abuses and basic legal and human rights being denied them.

The deteriorating security situation in Baghdad seriously affected CPT's presence. In November 2005, four CPT personnel were taken hostage, resulting in the murder of CPTer Tom Fox and the rescue of the remaining three in March 2006.

Following an evaluation phase, CPT relocated its violence reduction work to the Kurdish north of Iraq in late 2006, based in Suleimaniya.

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Snapshots of Real People in Iraq

CPTer Peggy Gish

Two brothers, Jamal and Khalid, were arrested randomly in a raid of their neighborhood by Iraqi Special Police Forces, the Palestinian ghetto in Baghdad. They were tortured and forced to confess on a television program to acts of terror they didn't commit. Other Palestinian refugees have been dragged out of their homes and killed... [MORE]

Bloodshed in Northern Iraq

CPTer Michele Naar-Obed

In what has been described as the largest cross-border attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Turkish military is now into its 6th day of a ground offensive inside the Kurdish region in Iraq. Turkey says the attack is limited to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets, but the ramifications go much farther... [MORE]

A View from Inside Kurdistan

CPTer Michele Naar-Obed

Iraqi Kurdistan: 'I Cry All Day Long'

CPTer Peggy Gish

IRAQ: Supporting our sisters

in:
Despite repeatedly calling for an end to violence against women, the young men continued to dominate the conversation.  Nearly every time one of the two women spoke, one of the men cut her off.  The men in this CPT training group of seven were saying all the right things, but they were more interested in speaking than in hearing about the oppression experienced by their sisters.  At one point, when I asked the group what men could do to support women, the men competed with each other to analyze the problem.  Even when I redirected the question to the older of the two women, a hesitant party-affiliated activist, she seemed unwilling to answer directly.  Her response, however, showed that her uncertainty was more a matter of inability than unwillingness.  "How can I trust any man in my culture?" she demanded, "I can not.  We women have all been betrayed by every man in our society." 

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