Tanya Darwish

Background and Work

Tanya Darwish is a woman human rights defender and the director of Rasan Organisation, a civil-society group based in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Rasan was founded to promote and defend the rights of women and LGBTIQ+ people through a combination of direct support services and public advocacy. The organisation provided legal assistance, social support, and psychological counselling to individuals facing discrimination, violence, and exclusion. It also conducted awareness-raising campaigns aimed at shifting public attitudes and challenging harmful stereotypes.

Rasan was the only organisation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq dedicated to supporting and advocating for the LGBTIQ+ community. Its work filled a significant gap in a region where state institutions offer little protection and where social hostility toward sexual and gender minorities is widespread. Women and LGBTIQ+ individuals who sought help from Rasan often had nowhere else to turn.

Escalating Complaints and Criminal Charges

In April 2019, a petition bearing 530 signatures was submitted against Rasan staff, accusing them of "spreading hatred with the aim of promoting illegal actions" under Article 403 of the Iraqi Penal Code. The petition was the first of several attempts to shut down the organisation through legal complaints.

In February 2021, Omar Gulpi, a member of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament, filed a formal complaint against Rasan, invoking the same penal-code provision and accusing the organisation of "violating public integrity and decency." The complaint provided the legal basis for subsequent judicial proceedings against the organisation and its staff.

On 16 June 2021, Tanya Darwish received a phone call from police informing her that she, current staff members, and former employees of Rasan were under investigation. The Department of Non-Governmental Organisations had lodged a complaint alleging that they had engaged in illegal activities. The charge—spreading hatred with the aim of promoting illegal actions—carries a prison sentence of up to two years. Darwish's lawyer advised her not to attend the police interrogation, warning that she and others might be detained if they appeared. The following day, the lawyer requested a postponement of the interrogation, citing Darwish's health condition.

The Closure of Rasan Organisation

On 31 May 2023, a court of first instance in Sulaymaniyah issued an order to close Rasan Organisation. The ruling was based entirely on the organisation's logo, which featured rainbow colours. Court-appointed legal experts concluded that the logo "fully reflects [the organisation's] activities in the field of 'homosexuality'." The judgment did not cite any illegal activities carried out by the organisation. Throughout the trial, Rasan was never informed that its logo was the subject of judicial scrutiny.

Rasan filed an appeal against the closure order, but the organisation is prohibited from resuming any of its human rights activities while the appeal is pending. The forced dissolution left women and LGBTIQ+ individuals in the Kurdistan Region without access to the specialised legal, social, and psychological services that Rasan had provided.

Gender-Based Attacks and Online Harassment

Tanya Darwish has been subjected to persistent harassment throughout her work with Rasan. She was targeted in an online sexualised defamation campaign that used fabricated or distorted personal information to attack her credibility and reputation. The campaign sought to undermine her standing as a human rights defender by exploiting social stigma around women's sexuality and autonomy.

Sexualised defamation is a form of gender-based violence used systematically against women human rights defenders in Iraq and across the region. These campaigns are designed not only to silence individual defenders but to deter other women from engaging in public advocacy, particularly on issues related to gender and sexuality.

Context and Pattern of Persecution

The judicial closure of Rasan and the criminal charges against its staff are part of a broader pattern of persecution targeting LGBTIQ+ rights defenders and activists in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a marked increase in hostile rhetoric, legal restrictions, and violence directed at LGBTIQ+ individuals and anyone perceived to support them. This hostility has been fuelled by statements from political leaders, armed factions, and religious authorities across Iraq, including in the Kurdistan Region.

The Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraqi federal authorities have increasingly invoked vague morality provisions in the penal code to criminalise human rights work related to gender and sexuality. These provisions are applied selectively and without clear legal standards, creating an environment in which defenders are vulnerable to arbitrary prosecution and judicial harassment.

Rasan's closure and the criminalisation of Tanya Darwish and her colleagues illustrate the precarious position of those who defend the rights of marginalised communities in Iraq. The state's use of judicial mechanisms to shut down civil-society organisations and prosecute their staff reflects a systemic effort to eliminate spaces for dissent and advocacy on issues deemed politically or socially sensitive.