Hella Mewis was kidnapped near Tarkib, an Iraqi contemporary arts institute in the capital’s Abu Nawas neighbourhood, a friend of the curator, who asked to remain anonymous, told Rudaw English.
The foreign national’s abduction comes just two weeks after prominent Iraqi security analyst and Rudaw columnist Husham al-Hashimi was assassinated by unknown armed groups in Baghdad. Hashimi’s death struck fear in already wary journalists, activists, and members of civil society similarly speaking out against the status quo in Iraq.
Dhikra Sarsam, a long time friend of Mewis’, said the curator was shaken by the news of Hashimi’s assasination.
“Hila was expecting to be kidnapped because all of us expected this fate, and yet she was against the idea of protections and confinement in an office that could not be left without protections and armor,” reads a social media post from Sarsam early on Tuesday morning.
She was "riding her bicycle when two cars, one of them a white pickup truck used by some security forces, were seen kidnapping her," a security source told AFP of Mewis’ abduction.
“There is a police car parked in front of her place of work, yet they didn’t do anything,” the anonymous friend told Rudaw English, adding that locals who know Mewis witnessed her abduction.
They kidnapped her because she loves Iraq ! Her only crime is spreading peace #freedom_for_hella pic.twitter.com/9FUb2vWQR7
— سما (@sama_altikrity) July 21, 2020
Mewis, who had lived in Baghdad for years, took part in ongoing protests that began sweeping across Baghdad and Iraq's Shiite-majority south in October, voraciously documenting them on Takrib’s Instagram account. Her friend said the involvement of a foreigner in the protests saw her branded a spy by what he called an “electronic army” of online anonymous trolls.
The German national ran numerous programmes at the arts collective. She "taught many young people about contemporary art which made a huge jump in the scene,” her friend said. “She contributed a lot to Iraq, she shouldn’t get paid back like this.”
A spokesperson from the German Embassy in Baghdad told Rudaw English that they are aware of the situation, but cannot comment on individual cases for the safety of those involved.
A number of foreign nationals have been kidnapped over the past year, marking a sharp increase in a practice that had been becoming less common than it once was.
Two French journalists were kidnapped allegedly by Iran-backed militias during the new year’s attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, but were released shortly after.
Three French nationals working with a French Christian charity in Iraq were abducted in January and released three months later.
The perpetrators of Hashimi’s assasination are still at large, but blame has mostly been squared at the Iran-backed armed militias – particularly Kataib Hezbollah, a Tehran-backed Iraqi militia falling under the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi) umbrella. Hashimi had received death threats from hardline PMF factions soon before his death, his associates said.
Before the coronavirus pandemic placed the country on lockdown, Iraq had been rocked by months of nationwide unrest as overwhelmingly young crowds demanded jobs, services, and action against corruption.
At least 600 protesters and members of the security forces were killed and more than 18,000 injured over the months since the movement emerged in October, according to human rights monitor Amnesty International.
Journalists, activists, and civil society actors are among those who have been caught in the crosshairs of the violence of the ongoing protests.
By March 17, at least 53 assassination attempts on protesters and aligned activists had been recorded, with 22 killed, Ali al-Bayati, commissioner of Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR), a government-funded body documenting abuses told Rudaw English on June 15. Of 75 people kidnapped, only 25 have been released to date, the fate of the remaining majority unknown.
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