Fatima Al‑Bahadli is an Iraqi human rights defender and founder of the Al‑Firdaws Society in Basra, an organisation dedicated to protecting women and girls affected by war, advancing peace-building, and campaigning against youth recruitment into armed groups in southern Iraq. Her activism earned her recognition such as the 2020 MENA Regional Award from Front Line Defenders and widespread international support. On 23 July 2021, her 26-year-old son Ali Karim, who had assisted her in community outreach but was not politically active, disappeared after leaving home. The following morning his body was found on the road in Al‑Zubair district, west of Basra, with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Al-Bahadli had long faced threats from armed militias, including directives to leave Basra, and holds her family’s tragedy as emblematic of the broader patterns of violence and impunity targeting civil society activists and their relatives in Iraq.