Finnish peace activist arrested in Iraq for demonstrating for reforms to university education system

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A Finnish national from the Helsinki region is believed to have been detained in Iraq. The next of kin of a 42-year-old man who is of Iraqi origin, but who has lived in Finland for the past 17 years and is a Finnish citizen, have informed the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the arrest.
      The Ministry confirms having received information about the man's arrest from his relatives.
      According to his friend Binar Mustafa, the Finnish national Omar Bahaaldin was arrested in his former home country Iraq on the 4th of May in the city of Sulaimaniya in the country's Kurdish region.
      Bahaaldin had taken part in a student demonstration and had given a speech after the march.
      Bahaaldin is a well-known activist in the area. At first he was released as the local police officers knew him, but the next day he was detained again following a request from a higher-ranking police commissioner.
     
The official reason for Bahaaldin's arrest is yet to be announced, but friends speculate that he was taken in because of his speech, in which he demanded that Sulaimaniya University be transformed into a real university in which everyone has equal rights to apply for a place.
      According to Mustafa, the university is presently a hatchery for activists from the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party and their relatives, who often do not even have the formal prerequisites for university studies. "They do not even attend the lectures and yet they are granted their doctorates. In effect they steal the few student places from more qualified people", Mustafa explains.
      Mustafa claims that the PUK is behind Bahaaldin and his brother's arrest. The right-wing PUK is in close cooperation with Iraq's present government.
      Bahaaldin is the chairman of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, and has also been involved in peace organisations in Finland.
      During the Saddam Hussein regime, Bahaaldin was arrested in Iraq and was sentenced to death.
      He narrowly escaped execution and arrived in Finland as a political refugee in 1988.
     
Finland does not currently have diplomatic representatives on the ground in Iraq.
      Any steps by the Foreign Ministry would have to be taken through the nearest Finnish legation, the embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Fear of war dwells in minds of Helsinki Kurds (8.4.2003)

Helsingin Sanomat