On 26 October 2010 at 3:30am, an Iraqi Army squad broke in to the house of human rights defender Mr Ayad Muayyad Salih in Al-Faysaleya quarter of Mosul city in order to arrest him.

Further Information

Mr Salih was not at his residence at the time of the break-in, as he was attending a Human Rights conference in Erbil city, organised by the Human Rights Centre, Nottingham.

His father and brother were subsequently arrested by the army and have been detained incommunicado since then. Ayad Muayyad Salih is an active member of the Iraqi Institution for Development, a local NGO in Nineveh which works voluntarily to defend human rights in cooperation with others including the United Nations Bureau in Iraq.

Mr Salih has been engaged in documenting and reporting on violations by the army especially in Nineveh/Mosul.

The army squad searched both the residence of Mr Salih, and that of his brother located in a different area of Mosul city. The army then arrested Mr Salih's father, Mr Muayyad Salih Ahmed (60 years), and his younger brother, Mr Ra'ed Muayyad Salih (28 years), and has been detaining them in an unknown location since then to put Ayad Muayyad Salih under pressure to surrender himself for undisclosed reasons, which Front Line believes are linked to his human rights work.

The army squad did not produce any arrest warrant for the arrest of the two men. Human rights defender Ayad Muayyad Salih is currently in hiding as he fears for his personal safety.

Front Line is deeply concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of human rights defender Ayad Muayyad Salih and for that of his father and brother whose current location and status is unknown.

Moreover Front Line believes the incommunicado detention of members of Mr Salih's family is being used as an attempt to terrorise him and fears that they may be ill-treated or tortured as incommunicado detention, which is a grave breach of international human rights law, significantly increases the risk of torture.

Front Line also condemns the conduct of the Iraqi army squad for its failure to issue a warrant to search the premises of Mr Salih, or an arrest warrant for members of his family.