[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Hella Mewis was kidnapped near Tarkib, an Iraqi contemporary arts institute in the capital’s Abu Nawas neighbourhood, a friend of the curator, who asked to remain anonymous, told Rudaw English.
"Hila was expecting to be kidnapped because all of us expected this fate, and yet she was against the idea of protections and confinement in an office that could not be left without protections and armor," reads a social media post from Sarsam early on Tuesday morning.
She was "riding her bicycle when two cars, one of them a white pickup truck used by some security forces, were seen kidnapping her," a security source told AFP of Mewis’ abduction.
"There is a police car parked in front of her place of work, yet they didn’t do anything," the anonymous friend told Rudaw English, adding that locals who know Mewis witnessed her abduction.
Mewis, who had lived in Baghdad for years, took part in ongoing protests that began sweeping across Baghdad and Iraq's Shiite-majority south in October, voraciously documenting them on Takrib’s Instagram account. Her friend said the involvement of a foreigner in the protests saw her branded a spy by what he called an "electronic army" of online anonymous trolls.
Expert hint: don’t get involved in local politics, especially demonstrations against the government or the local power, whether legal or illegal.
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