Yanar Mohammed and Ali Issa

Yanar Mohammed graduated from Baghdad University in 1984 and received a Master’s degree in Architecture in 1993. She co-founded the Organization of Women's Freedom (OWFI) in Iraq in 2003, and is the chief editor of the newspaper Al Mousawat.

Ali Issa is the national field organizer for the War Resisters League. He lives in Brooklyn, and can be contacted at Ali@warresisters.org.

Some of OWFI's recent, often cross-movement work has included: expanding the Al Mousawat Radio Project, an radio station broadcast in Iraq that focuses on women's rights now in its fourth year, leading a campaignagainst those responsible for the horrific damage done to the small northern Iraqi town of Hawija by a US military installation, and protecting an emerging leader in the Iraqi women's movement, Aya Al Lamie, after she was detained and tortured by government-backed thugs. OWFI members have also been prominent in the Iraqi, Arab-spring style protest movement that began in late February.