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Center for Justice and Peacebuilding News
Iraqi Peace Worker Killed
An Iraqi-Muslim advocate for peace and reconciliation, who received support from Christian organizations for his work in trauma-healing, has been killed.
Dr. Alharith Abdulhameed Hassan, 56-year-old professor of psychiatry at the University of Baghdad, was shot while traveling to work on Dec. 6, according to an e-mail sent in mid-January by his bereaved widow, Maysa Hussam Jaber, to friends at Eastern Mennonite University.
Both Alharith and Maysa attended trainings under EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) in Harrisonburg, Va., in the summer of 2004. They were selected and sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee, with additional support from Church World Service.
"I was with him when the hideous hands pulled the trigger to shoot him," Maysa wrote in her e-mail. "I was with him when we took him to the hospital, and I was with him when he said his last words ‘I am a doctor.’"
'a Great Loss to Iraq'
Jan Jenner, a member of CJP’s leadership team who knew the couple, said: "Dr. Alharith was a man who cared passionately about the people of Iraq. His death, among thousands and thousands in this tragic war, is a great loss to Iraq and to the human community as a whole."
Maysa requested that her husband be remembered, "especially in EMU, the university he loved most" and suggested "putting his photo and a short bio in one of the halls or near the tree we planted."
Dr. Alharith Abdulhameed Hassan helps plant a magnolia tree in front of a dormitory on the EMU campus during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in June, 2004, to symbolize the friendship between the peoples of Iraq and America.
Alharith, Maysa and four other Iraqis at EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2004 planted a magnolia tree in front of a dormitory to mark the friendship between the peoples of Iraq and America.
These six Iraqis were the first to attend classes at EMU following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Alharith and Maysa enrolled in STAR - Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience - and took a handful of other courses in May and June of 2004.
'Truthfulness of the American People'
In a written evaluation of his experiences at EMU, Alharith praised the practical methods and theory taught, as well as the opportunity to connect with people from different countries. He said he liked "knowing the reality and truthfulness of the American people."
He said that Dr. Hizkias Assefa - a part-time professor at EMU who is known as a top mediator in war zones around the world - "was more than excellent," encouraging Alharith to "be a practitioner in addition to being an academic."
Alharith’s own academic credentials were extensive. At his death he was director-general of the psychological research center at the University of Baghdad. He was a professor at Al-Mustansiriya University, the Baghdad campus where at least 70 perished when suicide bombers hit on Jan. 16. Alharith’s resume lists degrees for medicine, surgery and psychiatry from universities in Baghdad, London, Dublin and Edinburgh.
In recent years his research and practice interests were post-traumatic stress disorder, the rights of women and children, and interfaith education. From the 1990s to 2003, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Alharith had focused on parapsychology, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, as well as on meditation and yoga.
A list of Alharith’s professional output - dozens of publications edited, books authored, conferences attended all over the world, interviews conducted on radio and TV - fills eight single-spaced pages in a curriculum vitae provided by his widow. Alharith clearly was a leading figure both in Iraq and as a representative of Iraqi intellectuals on the international level.
Motives Unknown
Maysa wrote that she does not know who her husband’s killers were or why they targeted him. He was well-known to be moderate, "working for the good of Iraq with no ethnic or religious bias," she said.
Dr. Alharith Abdulhameed Hassan during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, June 2004
His moderation could have made him a target of extremists of various persuasions, who seem intent on wiping out those who are effective advocates of peaceful resolution of conflict, said Maysa.
EMU professor Peter Dula, who represented Mennonite Central Committee in Iraq until mid-2006, said that Iraqi intellectuals of all kinds are in extreme danger, especially professors, physicians and lawyers. "Hundreds have been killed," he said.
Alharith’s widow wrote: "Please, my friends remember Alharith in your prayers as a man of love," who continuously called for "love, peace, forgiveness and the power of knowledge."
Jenner said that a chapel service in Alharith’s memory will be held at EMU in the near future. "Ways to permanently memorialize Alharith and other alumni who have died in the service of peace are being discussed," Jenner added.
Questions/more information: Bonnie P. Lofton, 540-432-4234.
