The story of the Rafha detainees began in 1991. After the end of the second Gulf War, Iraq witnessed a popular uprising in the central and southern cities of the country against the regime of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
After months of the start of the uprising, the regime regained control of these cities, but those who came out at that time were arrested, killed, or fled abroad, specifically to the border city of Rafha in Saudi Arabia.
Iraqi law defines the detainees of Rafha as "the Mujahideen of the popular uprising in 1991 who were forced by the conditions of oppression and persecution to leave Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and their families who left with them and who were born in detention camps according to official records and internationally documented data."
Rafha demonstrations
After the economic crisis that struck the Iraqi economy recently with the collapse of oil prices and the government's registration of a large financial deficit, it deliberately stopped the payment of salaries for "Rafha detainees" and political prisoners, as well as stopping the principle of combining two government salaries with other benefits provided for by the Political Prisoners Law.
Soon after the government’s decision, hundreds of political prisoners and people of Rafha in the central and southern governorates, condemning the government’s decision to suspend their pensions.
For his part, the former political prisoner and one of the detainees of Rafha Latif al-Amidi considered that the recent measures against him and others of “Al-Rafhahawi”, by stopping their dues by the government of Mustafa Al-Kazemi, are “illegal” measures, which led them to demonstrate in order to claim their rights.
He adds in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net from the governorate of Najaf (south of the country) that what is taken on the government is that they have suspended their salaries stipulated by law, as it is not entitled to do so except by amending or canceling the law from the House of Representatives.
He added that the government continues to pay the salaries of the dissolved entities of the former regime (state security and media services) without stopping or deduction from them, in addition to the salaries of the rest of those affected by the previous regime as victims of the Anfal operation (military operations against the Kurds in 1988) and the Halabja massacre (a Kurdish city that was bombed with weapons) Chemical at the end of the Iran-Iraq war).
Al-Amidi concludes that the demonstrations aim to restore rights, noting that the number of detainees in Rafha does not exceed 29 thousand people.
A controversial law
In 2006 the Iraqi Parliament enacted the amended Political Prisoners' Law No. 4, which includes political prisoners and detainees in Rafha. In 2013 Parliament amended the law to include several articles, including Articles Seven and Nine, which specify what the beneficiaries receive as a retirement pension, according to the period of their detention in the camp, with the right to combine the pension and the salary of the government job that he occupies.
This is in addition to granting them a residential plot of land, an exception for admission to postgraduate studies, and provision of treatment inside and outside the country at the state’s expense, with annual wages abroad being spent for each family covered by law.
Commenting on the law, legal expert Tariq Harb said - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the Iraqi constitution, approved in 2005, approved the payment of compensation to political prisoners and detainees in Rafha, and not to pay pensions for them for life.
He adds that the Political Prisoners Law is a violation of many other laws, especially the retirement law, which provides for the payment of a pension for everyone who served in a government job in the Iraqi state for a certain period, and therefore the pension is a right for the employee who deducted the amount of his pension during the period of his service to the state, and this is what Not available for those with Rafha.
Harb also comments that the United Nations has defined Al-Rafhahawi as refugees and they are not detained, and therefore the law contradicts the definition of the United Nations to them, confirming that the decision of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi is correct in terms of stopping the double salaries of those with Rafha and those residing outside Iraq, who are the majority, according to him.
And about their numbers, Harb confirms that there are 30 thousand and 975 people from Rafha who were paid salaries, at a time when their real numbers between 1991 and 2003 did not exceed 3500 people only, pointing out that corruption and cronyism are behind the inflated numbers.
In turn, member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee Ahmed Hama Rashid commented that the number of detainees in Rafha amounts to 30 thousand and by adding their families the total number reaches 40 thousand, stressing that during their detention the United Nations made them choose between asylum in the United States or European Union countries or Australia or Iran .
On the government's stopping their salaries, Rashid adds to Al-Jazeera Net that the Al-Kazemi government has suspended the payment of multiple salaries per person, with the salary being restricted to the head of the family of the detainee in Rafha only without his family.
Rashid also pointed out in his speech that the Iraqi economy has become a victim of ill-considered laws, because victims all over the world pay them compensation only, not retirement pensions for life, given that the conditions of pension salary are absent in the political prisoners law, and that the Parliamentary Finance Committee is directed towards amending the law .
Waste of billions
The Iraqi state complains of a large financial deficit, as professor of economics at the Iraqi University, Abdul Rahman al-Mashhadani, says that the government's recent actions were to stop salaries - not to cancel them - until the audit of the Ministry of Finance is complete.
And al-Mashhadani points to Al-Jazeera Net that the latest measures were proposed by the International Monetary Fund, stopping the salaries of nearly 250,000 Iraqis who are paid more than three salaries at the same time, but the previous governments did not implement these recommendations.
Al-Mashhadani estimates that the salaries of former political prisoners and those with Rafha amount to $ 18 billion spent for them during the past years, and that the numbers of those receiving multiple salaries are exaggerated, and that the way they were added to the institution of prisoners legally responsible for them was done through the recommendations made by the parties during previous years.
As for the director of the General Retirement Authority in Iraq, Ahmed Abdel-Jalil, he assures Al-Jazeera Net that the retirement authority has suspended the payment of salaries for the Rafha detainees and political prisoners until the completion of the audit process, and he undertook not to combine two or more government salaries.
And it is likely that the audit process will be completed soon, as the numbers of those concerned and those inside or outside Iraq will be revealed, as the salaries of the beneficiaries will be re-disbursed according to the previous mechanism itself.