Researchers in Mosul call for compensating civilians damaged in armed clashes

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Researchers and university students in Mosul on Tuesday highlighted the importance of enacting a law to protect civilians and compensate those who have been damaged in armed clashes. This came during the symposium held in the Faculty of Political Science in Mosul University entitled, “Immunity of civilians in armed clashes,” held under the auspice of Higher Education Minister, Abd Ziyab al-Ujieli. “ Iraq suffered from an occupation, wars and armed clashes in the past years, which caused severe material loses to civilians and damaged their properties,” Dr. Mufeed Zanoun, the faculty’s dean, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “ This symposium is considered an attempt by researches to reach real results to fix this reality and to encourage politicians and civil society organizations to defend civilians and compensate them,” he added. “ Rules governing human rights in Iraq are not enough, thus we demand the concerned international organizations and the UN intervene to protect and compensate the Iraqi civilian,” Muthanna Emad Khaliel, member of the organizing committee, said. “ There are no accurate statistics on the victims or the losses because of the occupation forces’ presence and the armed conflicts in the country,” he told IraqiNews.com news agency. “ 13 researches were presented by 13 researchers specialized in law, political science, and human rights. All of them call for enacting a law to protect civilians in Iraq and compensate them,” Khaliel said. For his part, Dr. Mahmoud Salem al-Sameraei said, “I urge the Bar Association and other syndicates in Iraq and civil society organization to prepare a league (the Iraqi Peoples Right’s League) so as not to forget the Iraqi civilians’ rights.” Meanwhile, Suha Hameed Saliem, a researcher from Mosul University, tackled in her research “violence against women during armed conflicts.” “ Several violations were perpetrated against women during international and local armed conflicts,” she added. Researcher from the Tikrit University, Khaled Ekab, tackled in his research the international law’s stance from crimes made by private, security and military companies. Mosul, the capital of Ninewa, is 405 km north of Baghdad. SH (S)/SR 1