Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah

Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah (1949 or 1950 – January 19, 2004) was a humanities professor born in Basra, who became chairman of the Arab World Research and Studies Centre at Mustansiriya University and head of the Baghdad Centre for Human Rights. He was an outspoken critic of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, which was the provisional government of Iraq from 2003 to 2004, established by the US-led multinational coalition occupying Iraq, following the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He was assassinated on January 19, 2004.

On the evening of January 18, 2004, on the television channel al-Jazeera, he had criticised what he called the corruption of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), appointed by the US authorities, and demanded universal elections as soon as possible, as had earlier done during the presidency of Saddam Hussein. He is quoted as saying, "I can endure any Iraqi government, but the feeling of being under occupation is terrible for me."

On the morning of January 19, 2004, al-Mayah left his house at 8am and starting driving his car, with another professor, Sarhan Abbas, in the passenger seat. Due to the road shape and traffic, he slowed down the car, and passed an outdoor shish kebab restaurant, El Banouk (The Bank), which was just about to open for the day. About a hundred metres further on, he slowed the car again because of a large pothole. A group of seven or eight men with their faces concealed by red keffiyehs (headscarves) appeared from a side road. Al-Mayah thought they were carjackers and was ready to hand them the keys. The attackers then shot al-Mayah more than 20 times.

Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, al-Mayah was against both the occupation and the previous dictatorship.

Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah was for some time a low-level member of the Ba'ath Party. He voluntarily quit the party in 1991 due to dissatisfaction with it. He believed in the original Ba'ath ideal of Arab unity, but not in the way the Ba'ath Party was implementing this.