March 2016

The Citizenship Association for Human Rights In Iraq have conducted the Fourth training on  Cyber Censorship and protecting digital information form hacking and sabotage of programs or files and information stealing.

The training included nine members form media and feminist organizations, including human rights and workers in the departments of media in each of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Culture.

The trainer of the training gave theoretical and practical sessions about the risks facing the users of the modern communication techniques and the process of improving the personal information protection on the Internet.

The training which was held on March 16, was the first training in 2016 but the forth of its kind given by the association in the framework of the project which continued for two years (2014 -2015). The total number of the male and female trainees in this project was 134 trainee from Baghdad and Kirkuk. Despite the limited efforts, but the need for protection on the internet and digital security is increasing for human rights defenders with  the increasing of modern communication technologies used in the Arab world in general and in Iraq in particular.

The security and mobility difficulties in Baghdad are restricting the implementation of such trainings, despite the great need for it, and the topic of internet security and all related technologies are new for those who are working on human rights in Iraq and for the users of modern communication technology in general.

The trainees pointed out that most of them were not familiar with the protection technology given during the training, and the program of the training helped them to understand more on digital security and how they can secure their private data, on the internet.

The Citizenship Association for Human Rights that was previously known as  “The National Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Iraq” is the Iraqi partner within the program of “Building a culture of online human rights and digital security through the capacity building and networking of human rights defenders in the Maghreb-Machrek region” which was funded by the European Commission and the European Union and was implemented by the Alternatives organization in Canada with a number of partners in the Arab countries including: Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Sudan and Tunisia.

The Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative (ICSSI) contributed as a supporting partner for the project in Iraq.