Since a week, I have been reading "Al-Fitna" by Kanan Makiya about the state of Iraq from 2003 till 2006, and it was amazing that whenever I finished reading a chapter of the novel and reading the news bulletins, I felt as if I was still completing the remaining chapters of the novel, as there is no difference in the details in terms of assassinations and violence. Last week alone, Basra witnessed assassinations against Iraqi activists, men and women, the most famous of whom is the Iraqi Reham Yaqoub. Their only sin was the rejection of Iranian influence, and corruption, and all of these assassinations were carried out by the lawless terrorist groups affiliated with militias defending Iran. Despite all the sad scenes, the amazing thing is the magnitude of Western hypocrisy, specifically the media and human rights institutions, which did not give the degree of violence targeting activists in Iraq the attention it deserved, compared to other less tragic stories. Since October 2019, Iraqi activists have been facing a campaign of assassinations and abductions, amid total silence by most of the Western media. Their correspondents in the region are devoted only to commenting on Twitter, as if they were activists, and not professional journalists. They devote themselves to commenting on Twitter as if they were part of campaigns, not professional journalists whose main responsibility is to reveal the facts, and the last thing that matters to the followers is their opinions, being field journalists, not commentators or opinion writers, and this is another topic that deserves to be addressed. The story does not stop at Western media and their hypocrisy only, but since October 2019, international human rights organizations have not been giving what is happening in Iraq, in terms of assassinations and kidnappings, the attention they pay to other issues under the lie of human rights. Which of them is more important than the right of a person who rejects foreign intervention in his homeland, the way Iraqis reject Iranian intervention, and are met with violence, murder, and kidnapping! Regrettably, most of the Western media and organizations, and international human rights institutions, did not accord Iraq half of the attention they gave to the killing of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, for example, in an American bombing. Furthermore, they did not give the victims of militia violence half the attention they gave to the terrorist Soleimani, who caused massacres in Iraq and Syria. Yes, it is regrettable that the Western media should give large space and coverage to the assassination of the murderer Qassem Soleimani, and question the United States' right to target him, while ignoring the Iraqis who are facing the most horrific kinds of violence and intimidation at the hands of Iranian militias that he (Soleimani) created, and supervised personally! And this is not all. Rather, it is unfortunate that those who count themselves as part of the United Nations, and I am talking specifically about Agnes Callamard, are devoted to stating that the assassination of Soleimani was outside the scope of the law, while she remains totally silent on what is happening against Iraqi activists, including assassinations and kidnappings, outside the scope of law. Is there more hypocrisy than this?
