Abdulrazzaq (Razzaq) Al-Saiedi oversees PHR’s relationships and coordination with partners and institutions in Iraq and, as relevant, across the MENA region. His work aims to promote justice and to strengthen and build the capacity of legal and medical institutions, with a particular focus on the documentation of torture, sexual violence, and other serious human rights abuses, in ways that center the rights and needs of survivors.
Al-Saiedi is an author and expert on human rights and transitional justice in the MENA region. Prior to joining PHR, he served as a human rights and transitional justice officer with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, where he developed and implemented advocacy strategies to advance transitional justice processes in post-Qaddafi Libya. From 2011 to 2013, he conducted research for PHR on attacks on health care systems and other human rights abuses across the MENA region
Al-Saiedi was a fellow and researcher at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he examined electoral systems in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He also was a fellow at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Harvard School of Public Health where he worked on a report assessing the perceptions and needs of the community affected by the conflict with ISIS. At the International Center for Transitional Justice, he designed intervention strategies and served as the organization’s liaison in Iraq. He has reported on Iraqi politics and conflict for The New York Times and co-authored a report on de-Baathification in Iraq.
Al-Saiedi was a Harvard Nieman Fellow in 2007. He is fluent in Arabic and holds a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.