Fifteen Years of Waiting: Iraqi Woman’s Search for Justice Ends in Silence
“I began this process 15 years ago,” Zainab told Kurdistan24. “I’ve been to every relevant government office in Baghdad, raised my voice to every official I could reach, but no one has answered my request.”
BAGHDAD (Kurdistan24) — An Iraqi woman’s 15-year struggle for recognition and compensation as a victim of the former Ba’ath regime continues to be met with silence and bureaucratic neglect, highlighting the challenges many Iraqis still face in seeking justice decades after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
Zainab Fawzi, a resident of Baghdad, has spent the last decade and a half visiting government institutions in the capital in a bid to complete the official process that would recognize her executed brothers as political prisoners and martyrs. Despite her persistence, she says no authority has responded to her appeals.
“I began this process 15 years ago,” Zainab told Kurdistan24. “I’ve been to every relevant government office in Baghdad, raised my voice to every official I could reach, but no one has answered my request.”
Zainab’s family paid a steep price under the Ba’athist regime. Two of her brothers were executed in Sedarat Prison, and a third was killed in a terrorist attack. After fleeing Iraq, the family lived in exile in Iran for 33 years.
In her pursuit of justice, Zainab has spent more than 25 million Iraqi dinars (roughly $19,000), covering legal fees, travel costs, and informal payments to individuals in government departments who promised to “finalize” her case. Some even demanded money under the guise of processing her political prisoner compensation file—yet no resolution followed.
Her brother, Amer Fawzi, spoke of the family’s decades-long ordeal: “We suffered displacement, we lost three martyrs, and we’ve endured years of grief. Now we are met with silence from the very institutions that should be protecting and honoring the victims of tyranny.”
Kurdistan24 contacted the Political Prisoners Foundation in Baghdad for comment, but the institution declined to respond and refused to provide any statement on the matter.
Zainab’s case sheds light on a broader issue facing Iraq’s transitional justice system. While the country has officially acknowledged the crimes of the former regime, the bureaucratic process to compensate and recognize victims remains slow, inconsistent, and often marred by corruption or political bias.
For Zainab and countless others, justice is not only delayed—it remains agonizingly out of reach.
Dilan Barzan, Kurdistan24’s correspondent in Baghdad, contributed to this report.
