Baghdad, 23 November 2017: In Baghdad today, ICMP convened a meeting of the Working Group on Data Processing and Protection, focusing on steps that can be taken by Iraqi stakeholders to improve the legal framework supporting efforts to account for the missing. The Working Group brings together representatives of ministries and other government agencies and institutions in Iraq that have a public mandate to address the issue of the missing.

Today’s meeting examined personal data processing in the context of Articles 19 and 20 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED).

ICMP’s Director of Policy and Cooperation Andreas Kleiser presented internationally recognized principles relevant to efforts to investigate the whereabouts of the missing and the circumstances of their disappearance. He invited the group to meet again for further discussion of proposals for legislative reform that were raised during the meeting.

Lena Larsson, Head of ICMP’s Iraq Program, leading the workshop.

Agencies represented at today’s workshop included the Department of Forensic Medicine (DNA Fingerprinting and Mass Graves), the Martyrs’ Foundation (Mass Graves Department), the Ministry of Defense (Forensic Medicine and Department of Prisoners and Missing Persons), the Ministry of Interior (Human Rights Directorate and Criminal Evidence), the Office of the Human Rights Advisor of the Office of the Prime Minister, the Parliamentary Committee on Martyrs, the Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Commission in Iraq, the Center for Investigation and Gathering Evidence, Dohuk, the University of Nahrain (DNA Center), and the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs.