Dissident Spotlight: Mazen Latif
Mazen Latif owned a publishing house in Iraq and publicly criticized the government for its corruption and poor performance. He disappeared on February 1, 2020.
In February 2020, armed men kidnapped Mazen Latif in Baghdad. He disappeared in broad daylight.
Latif was active in the protests that had broken out the previous fall. In October 2019, Iraqis broke out into protests over unemployment and poor government quality. The protests spread across the country. Iraq’s leaders shut down the internet and reacted violently against the protesters. Latif was involved in and supportive of these protests.
Latif’s kidnapping wasn’t an isolated incident, either. Another journalist, Tawfik Al-Tamimi, was disappeared just over a month later for a Facebook post expressing concern for Latif.
About four years later, Human Rights Watch listed writers, journalists, and other Iraqis whose disappearances remained unexplained.
Latif and Al-Tamimi were both on that list.
Ordinary Offenses
One of the most striking things about Latif’s disappearance is how ordinary his alleged offenses were. Expressing outrage at the government is one of America’s most popular pastimes.
Participating in mass protests comes easily to Americans, too — so easily that it’s easy to forget how dangerous exercising ordinary freedoms is for people in autocratic countries. Activists continued to be assassinated and shot almost a year after the protests began.
Danger didn’t quell unrest. From October 2021 to October 2022, Iraq’s parliament couldn’t form a coalition government. Pro-Iran political factions refused to recognize key votes from other Iraqi political parties, and the country remained deadlocked on taxation and spending policies.
Iraq finally formed a coalition government in 2022, but the disappeared Iraqis still haven’t been found. Latif’s fate remains unknown. No group within the country has revealed what happened to activists protesting their government’s poor performance.
Latif is a reminder to hold the freedoms we often take for granted dear and how fragile the egos of corrupt governments are.
After all, evil doesn’t like to be named. The same can be said for incompetence.