Faiq Al Sheikh Ali

Faiq Al Sheikh Ali (Arabic: فائق الشيخ علي; born 2 July 1963) is an Iraqi politician currently serving as a Member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq since 2014 and is the Secretary-General of the People's Party. In parliament, he is a member of the Judiciary Committee and is an opposition member against the current government.

Early life and education

Born in the city of Najaf, south of Baghdad to a prominent religious family, Faiq Al Sheikh Ali has, however been a Secular Liberal throughout his life. He graduated high school from Al-Najaf High School (Arabic: إعدادية النجف) in 1983 and earned his Bachelor's degree in Law from the University of Baghdad, College of Law and Political Sciences in 1987. He then became a lawyer in 1989 and has been a politician since then.

Political career

Sheikh Ali took part in the 1991 uprisings in Iraq and was forced to flee Iraq to Saudi Arabia in 1991. In 1993 he settled in the United Kingdom, where he took part in most meetings and conferences of the Iraqi opposition, the last being the London conference in December 2002. He was an Independent politician in exile, also working as a journalist since 1993 writing hundreds of articles against Saddam Hussein and denouncing the Iraqi government's record of human rights violations.^[1] He received several death threats by Saddam personally if he did not stop criticising the regime.

Exile

In mid-January 2002, a convoy of black Mercedes cars and Land Rovers suddenly drew up outside his father's home in Najaf at 7 am. Gunmen, some in black masks, jumped out holding Kalashnikovs and pistols and entered the house. His two sisters, were brought with their four children from their houses. Two Iraqi TV crews with cameras were present and his mother, two of his sisters, and a younger brother were then forced to sit together to denounce their brother Faiq, on Iraq's satellite television in a 25-minute interview. Whenever the interviewer was dissatisfied with their replies they were forced to repeat their words. The whole process took five hours.

This happened after Sheikh Ali took part in an angry debate on Al-Jazeera channel, December 2001 calling Saddam Hussein a terrorist and a butcher. Patrick Cockburn, on Saturday 23 March 2002 wrote an article about it in The Independent under Saddam parades families of exiled critics on TV.^[2] After the interview, his family were arrested in Najaf and taken to Baghdad for five days by the Iraqi security forces. They were then released but had to sign their names at the security headquarters in the capital once a week, until the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. It was not the family's first brush with the security police. In 1996 his father was arrested four times in Najaf and died suddenly soon after he was released the last time. His family suspect he may have been killed by poison put in a bowl of yoghurt.

Sheikh Ali is also the author of several books written in Arabic, the most famous being 'The Assassinations of a People'^[3] (Arabic: اغتيال شعب) written in 1999 and published in February 2000. Another book of his that came out in six editions is called the 'Memoirs of the Heir of the Thrones'^[4] (Arabic: مذكرات وريثة العروش) published at first 2002. In this book, Sheikh Ali wrote the memoirs of the only survivor of 14 July 1958 Iraqi coup d'état Princess Badiya,^[5] the daughter of King Ali of Hejaz, and aunt of King Faisal II of Iraq, the last King of Iraq who was killed during the coup along with his aunties and uncle 'Abd al-Ilah, Princess Badiya's brother, who served as Regent of Iraq from 4 April 1939 to 23 May 1953.^[6]

Return to Iraq

Even though the Iraqi opposition returned to Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Faiq Al Sheikh Ali decided not to and instead remained in London alongside his family. He founded the People's Party in 2011, and took part in the Iraqi 2014 parliamentary election as part of the Civil Democratic Alliance,^[7] an Iraqi political coalition formed by various civil and liberal figures. Sheikh Ali was one of three winners in the Baghdad Governorate. Out of more than 3000 candidates in Baghdad,^[8] he gained 24,256 votes,^[9] arriving sixth in terms of the number of votes.

In Parliament

Since July 2014, Faiq Al Sheikh Ali has been a member in both the Judiciary and Human Rights Committees'. He's known for his continuous calls for the dismissal of the current high electoral commission chosen by the previous Council of Representatives of Iraq in 2012 as it's nine board of commissioners and most office managers were chosen from the nine largest political parties.^[10] Instead, he wants an independent high electoral commission made up of judges, assigned by the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council.^[11]

In November 2014, he also collected 78 signatures from different members in the parliament, in order to amend the current 2005 Constitution of Iraq^[12] as he believes it is short of many important articles, and is too rigid, making it difficult to interpret and apply. Sheikh Ali also calls for a fair election law rather than the current one,^[13] which favours larger parties.

On 24 October 2016, the Iraqi parliament voted on the law of municipal imports, with its 14th article stating that it is prohibited to import, manufacture and sell alcoholic beverages of all kinds. Sheikh Ali came out very strongly against this article in a press conference, mentioning that it is against civil rights and was included in the last minute by some Islamist MP's against the will of most of the Judiciary Committee. He also revealed that the reasons behind this article was in order to increase trading with the drugs made from the opium poppy seeds and increase the consumption of the drugs that are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran. The conference gained more than one million views on his Facebook page alone^[14] the first day it was uploaded and was shared on many different Iraqi pages making the Iraqi media talk about it for a whole week.

Faiq Al Sheikh Ali is also a member of the Parliamentarians for Global Action,^[15] since 2014 and is working to get the Iraqi government to sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. He is a defender of Iraqi minorities including Christians and Yazidis and calls for immediate action by the government to secure those who were victims of genocide by ISIS.

References