Iraqi feminist who saved thousands from honor killings slain by gunman outside home in Baghdad

Iraqi women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed, who saved thousands of women from honor killings and domestic violence, was shot outside her home in Baghdad on Monday by two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle.

OWFI, confirming her death, published in a statement, "With profound sorrow and grief, and in a shock that words cannot describe, the Women's Freedom Organization in Iraq mourns the passing of its president, Yanar Mohammed, and extends its condolences to the liberation movement, the women's rights movement in Iraq, and the world at large."

“At the end of her life, she probably had, I don’t know how many safe homes because she kept them a secret. She didn’t want anybody to know about them. These women’s lives were in her hands. She fed the hungry and she clothed the ones who were discarded,” her cousin told KCBD, explaining how her relative received a number of death threats over the years.

Razaw Salihy, Amnesty International’s Iraq Researcher, believes that Mohammed’s murder was a “calculated assault to stifle human rights defenders, especially those defending women’s rights.”

“The assassination of Yanar Mohammed fits a chilling pattern of targeted killings and attempted killings of activists that Amnesty International has documented during and in the aftermath of the Tishreen protests since 2019. The persistent failure of the Iraqi authorities to hold perpetrators accountable for past assassinations has entrenched a climate of impunity that continues to place activists at grave and fatal risk. Human rights defenders, including women’s rights defenders in Iraq must be protected - not silenced and killed,” Salihy published. “Iraqi authorities must ensure the investigation they have ordered is prompt, effective, thorough, independent and impartial, in line with international standards. They must bring all those responsible to justice in fair trials that preclude the death penalty.”