Faiq Al Sheikh Ali (; born 2 July 1963) is an Iraqi lawyer and politician who served as a Member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq From 2014 and is the Secretary-General of the People's Party for Reform. In parliament, he was a member of the Judiciary (Legal) Committee. He led the Civilized Alliance for the 2018 Iraqi parliamentary election. He boycotted the 2021 Iraqi parliamentary election. after the suspension of his immunity by the Iraqi Parliament in 2019.
Early life and education
Born in the city of Najaf, south of Baghdad to a prominent religious family (Grandson of Sheikh Ali Al-Murandi born in Morand in Iran), Faiq Al Sheikh Ali has, however been a Secular Liberal throughout his life. He graduated high school from Al-Najaf High School (Arabic: إعدادية النجف) in 1983 and earned his bachelor's degree in law from the University of Baghdad, College of Law and Political Sciences in 1987. He then became a lawyer in 1989 and has been a politician since then.
Political career
Sheikh Ali took part in the 1991 uprisings in Iraq and was forced to flee Iraq to Saudi Arabia in 1991. In 1993, he settled in the United Kingdom, where he took part in most meetings and conferences of the Iraqi opposition, the last being the London conference in December 2002. He was an Independent politician in exile, also working as a journalist since 1993 writing hundreds of articles against Saddam Hussein mainly in the Al-Hayat Newspaper and denouncing the Iraqi government's record of human rights violations. He received several death threats by Saddam personally since he did not stop criticising the regime.
In a February 2002 letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum expressed their serious concern at the continuing intimidation of Faiq Al Sheikh Ali. They urged Saddam to immediately end his government's systematic suppression of dissenting voices and to fully respect international standards of freedom of expression.
Exile
In mid-January 2002, a convoy of black Mercedes cars and Land Rovers suddenly drew up outside his father's home in Najaf at 7 am. Gunmen, some in black masks, jumped out holding Kalashnikovs and pistols and entered the house. His two sisters, were brought with their four children from their houses. Two Iraqi TV crews with cameras were present and his mother, two of his sisters, and a younger brother were then forced to sit together to denounce their brother Faiq, on Iraq's satellite television in a 25-minute interview. Whenever the interviewer was dissatisfied with their replies they were forced to repeat their words. The whole process took five hours.
This happened after Sheikh Ali took part in an angry debate on Al-Jazeera channel on the Conflicting Views programme in December 2001 calling Saddam Hussein a terrorist and a butcher. Patrick Cockburn, on Saturday 23 March 2002 wrote an article about it in The Independent under Saddam parades families of exiled critics on TV. After the interview, his family were immediately arrested in Najaf and were then taken to Baghdad for five days by the Iraqi security forces. Later, they were released but had to sign their names at the security headquarters in the capital once a week, until the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. It was not the family's first brush with the security police. In 1996 his father was arrested four times in Najaf and died suddenly soon after he was released the last time. His family suspect he may have been killed by poison put in a bowl of yoghurt.
Return to Iraq and 2014 Parliamentary Elections
Even though the opposition returned to Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime, Faiq Al Sheikh Ali preferred not to and instead remained living in London alongside his family, retiring from politics for eight years. He founded the People's Party in 2011, and decided to take part in the Iraqi 2014 parliamentary election as part of the Civil Democratic Alliance, an Iraqi political coalition formed by various civil, liberal and democratic parties as well as independent figures. Sheikh Ali was one of three winners in the Baghdad Governorate. Out of more than 3000 candidates in Baghdad, he received 24,256 votes, arriving sixth in terms of the number of votes, after two previous Prime Ministers and three Ministers.