Although it is impossible to determine the exact scale of the violence and intimidation, the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education reported that over 3,250 academics had fled the country between February and August 2006.
Al-Rawi, a medical specialist, FRCS and president of Baghdad University, was killed in his clinic, in front of his wife and patients, on July 27, 2003.
[4] Prof. Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah, a humanities professor born in Basra, who had been chairman of the Arab World Research and Studies Centre at Mustansiriya University, head of the Baghdad Center for Human Rights, and had been an outspoken critic of the Iraq Interim Governing Council, was assassinated on January 19, 2004.
"[9] Various hypotheses that have been claimed for the attacks include a systematic attempt by Iraqi non-state armed opposition groups (Sunni and Shi'ite),[11][12] or Kuwaiti or Israeli secret services[8] to decimate Iraq's intelligentsia.
The BRussells Tribunal takes no position on attributing blame for the violence, stating that "The wave of assassinations appears non-partisan and non-sectarian, targeting women as well as men, and is countrywide.