The new government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani must break with the failures of past governments related to justice, truth and reparation and address pervasive human rights violations in Iraq, Amnesty International said today in an open letter.
The Prime Minister has on at least two occasions publicly committed to the protection of public freedoms and human rights. Yet less than several months since his administration took power, the ministry of interior has established new mechanisms to monitor “indecent content” on social media, which has already led to courts sentencing six people to prison for exercising their right to free speech.
The organization urged the government to ensure meaningful progress in the stalled accountability process for the 2019 crackdown on protests and prioritize long-standing issues such as displaced people’s access to livelihood, gender-based violence and death sentences issued after unfair trials.  
“The true measure of a government’s commitment to human rights is not in the promises it makes, but in the action it takes. The people of Iraq deserve more than empty rhetoric and endless cycles of abuse,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“It is a worrying sign that just a few months in, the Al-Sudani government has started a campaign to crack down on “indecent content” online, resulting in people being prosecuted after posting harmless videos of themselves dancing and making jokes. Meanwhile, those who committed grave crimes like abductions, torture and killings in the context of the October 2019 protests are yet to be brought to justice.”   

In January 2023, the Ministry of Interior set up a committee to monitor what it deems to be “indecent” social media content and refer individuals for prosecution under Penal Code articles criminalizing acts of “public indecency. It also set up “Balgh” (report in Arabic), a platform where people could report social media content that “violates public morals, contains negative and indecent messages, and undermines social stability”.
The committee has referred at least 16 cases for criminal investigation by judicial authorities and from complaints on the “Balgh” platform. Criminal courts have already sentenced six individuals to prison over their social media posts and are investigating another eight. The AFP reported that some of the individuals who were prosecuted were known for creating content related to music and comedy.
Criminal courts continue to prosecute people for expressing critical political views.  On 5 December 2022, a criminal court in Baghdad sentenced 20-year-old Haidar al-Zaidi to three years in prison over a tweet criticizing the deceased deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). Al-Zaidi was sentenced under Article 226 of the Penal Code, which punishes any “insult to the National Assembly or the government or the courts or the armed forces or any other constitutional body or the public authorities or official or semi-official agencies or departments” by seven years imprisonment or a fine.

During the protest movement which began in October 2019, Amnesty International documented a wave of deadly violations perpetrated by Iraqi security forces, including factions of the PMU. This brutal crackdown, which spanned the months of what is referred to as the “Tishreen” protests, resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries including through targeted killings and torture. Survivors and family members seeking justice, meanwhile, have been subjected to attacks and intimidation, prompting some to flee abroad.
To date, there have been no public announcements on the results of the numerous committees established to investigate violations.
On 15 February, Prime Minister al-Sudani directed the acceleration of investigations into “the events that accompanied the October 2019 demonstrations”. Amnesty International calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that there is meaningful progress in accountability proceedings for these grave violations that took place almost three years ago and that abusers are swiftly brought to justice.

Displaced people in Iraq face many challenges, including arbitrary arrest, a lack of livelihood opportunities and obstacles in obtaining basic documentation. Between 2020 and 2021, the Ministry of Migration and Displacement hastily closed camps for internally displaced people, despite serious difficulties to their safe returns home. They continue to face risks of arbitrary arrest and other harassment by armed actors and security forces, a lack of livelihood opportunities, and obstacles in obtaining basic civil documentation that is necessary for freedom of movement and for access to many essential services.
Amnesty International is calling on the government to end this discrimination and ensure safe returns for all displaced persons, including those repatriated from north-east Syria.

​Unfair trials and death sentences

Death sentences are still being handed down, with at least 20 sentenced to death since the Al-Sudani government took office.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
“The Prime Minister has an opportunity to end Iraq’s brutal practice of sentencing people to death, often following unfair trials, by announcing a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty entirely,” said Aya Majzoub.

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The British Cabinet recently released documents revealing information about the US-British lies the two countries told before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
​
The documents revealed that London was confident that the allegations of Iraq’s possession of any weapons of mass destruction or long-range missiles, at least two years before its invasion, were false.

The BBC considered that these documents are the first of their kind that prove that the British Prime Minister, at the time, Tony Blair, knew that Iraq had no capabilities to possess prohibited weapons in accordance with United Nations resolutions issued before and after the withdrawal of the Iraqi army from Kuwait in February 1991, following Operation Desert Storm.

20 years after the beginning of the war, the documents confirm that the strict international sanctions imposed on Iraq after the liberation of Kuwait from the occupation of the Iraqi army in 1991, prevented Saddam Hussein from developing weapons that were not permitted.

The documents refer mainly to the effectiveness of British sanctions within a review conducted by the Blair administration in 2001 of the US-British policy on Iraq, and this review was agreed upon during the first visit of Blair to Washington after George Bush was elected as U.S. President.

The documents confirm that Britain offered the U.S. administration a new policy called ‘a contract with the Iraqi people’ aiming to obtain support, especially from the countries and people of the Arab region, for the US-British policy in dealing with Iraq.
​
“Without our containment policy, it was likely that Iraq would now possess a long-range missile capable of reaching Britain and Europe, as well as chemical, biological and nuclear warheads for such a weapon,” the review clearly confirmed, according to the documents.

The Case Against Omar Nazar a Critical Moment for Accountability

Criminal proceedings were launched this week against Lt. Col. Omar Nazar, a senior Iraqi officer accused of abuses connected to a crackdown on protesters in 2019.

The case, launched February 22 in the Nasiriyah Investigation Court, is significant not only because it is one of the few instances the authorities have pursued a senior security officer for crimes committed against civilians, but also because of the failure of previous governments to take action.

Nazar was a member of Iraqi Ministry of Interior’s Emergency Response Division (ERD), which was deployed against ISIS and also in response to widespread protests in 2019 and 2020.

In 2016 and 2017, Kurdish photojournalist Ali Arkady embedded with ERD units, during battles against ISIS in Fallujah and in Mosul. In May 2017, after fleeing the country, Arkady published photos and videos that apparently showed members of ERD units, including Nazar, committing abuses. This is not the subject of the current investigation.

Days after the publication of this evidence, Nazar appeared in a video posted on YouTube and Facebook at the home of one man whose torture by another ERD unit was captured in Arkady’s photos and videos, and had the man deny the torture on camera. In statements to the media after the Arkady publication, Nazar did not deny abuses happened. He remained in a command position until now.  

On February 11, Nazar was arrested and is now being prosecuted “on charges of suppressing demonstrators.”
​
This arrest is an important first step toward accountability, but arrests for mass killings of protesters and other serious human rights abuses shouldn’t stop here and should never be limited to cases where leaked investigations are made public.




Source (Click Here)

​Extrajudicial Killings, Enforced Disappearances Go Unpunished

​The Iraqi government failed in 2021 to deliver on promises to hold to account those responsible for the abuse of protesters, activists, journalists, and critics of political elites and the Popular Mobilization Forces, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022.

The abuses included arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. In this accountability vacuum, armed groups fired three armed drones at the home of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on November 7 in an apparent attempt to kill him.

“The attempted assassination of Prime Minister al-Kadhimi vividly captures the impunity of Iraq’s armed groups,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They are not afraid to launch even a brazen attack on the country’s leader.”

In the 752-page World Report 2022, its 32nd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. Executive Director Kenneth Roth challenges the conventional wisdom that autocracy is ascendent. In country after country, large numbers of people have recently taken to the streets, even at the risk of being arrested or shot, showing that the appeal of democracy remains strong. Meanwhile, autocrats are finding it more difficult to manipulate elections in their favor. Still, he says, democratic leaders must do a better job of meeting national and global challenges and of making sure that democracy delivers on its promised dividends.
​

During protests that began in October 2019 and continued into late 2020, clashes with security forces, including the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or hashad) nominally under the control of the prime minister, left at least 487 protesters dead in Baghdad and Iraq’s southern cities. When Prime Minister al-Kadhimi took office in May 2020 he formed a committee to investigate the killings of protesters but it had yet to announce any findings as of December 2021.
​
In February, the government announced the arrest of members of a “death squad” that had allegedly been responsible for killing at least three activists in the southern city of Basra. Baghdad authorities announced in July that they had arrested three low-level security forces officers linked to abuses against protesters, and one man allegedly responsible for the 2020 killing of a political analyst, Hisham Al-Hashem. The only police officer who was tried was sentenced to death in November for membership in the death squad.

On October 10, Iraqis voted for a new parliament with a turnout of only 36 percent. The movement of the prominent Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr secured the largest number of seats in peaceful elections. Despite its role in bringing about the elections, the youth movement won only 15 seats as of the initial seat count in early December. Some youth leaders were too fearful or unable to run because they had to flee their homes, while many in the movement were apparently disheartened that they felt there was no point to vote.

Throughout 2021, the Kurdistan Regional Government pursued numerous cases against journalists for their writing. In February, the Erbil Criminal Court sentenced three journalists and two activists to six years in prison each in proceedings marred by serious fair trial violations as well as high-level political interference. The court rejected the defendants’ claims of torture and ill-treatment, citing a lack of evidence. Another journalist was sentenced to one year for alleged “misuse of his cell phone” and defamation charges in June and September. Another four activists and journalists were arrested in 2020 and sentenced to between one and two years on November 8. Kargar Abbas and Bandawar Ayub received one year and two months in prison, Sherwan Taha was sentenced to two years and three months in prison, and Masud Ali was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

“It is alarming to see Kurdistan authorities pursuing charges against people for protected speech and without any regard for the flawed nature of their trials,” Wille said. “By prosecuting these cases they are sending a clear signal to critical journalists to be silent.”




Source (Click Here)

Hopes for Accessible Voting on Election Day Dashed

In the weeks leading up to the October 10 parliamentary elections, Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) promised to take steps to ensure people with disabilities could vote.
​
But on election day, videos circulated suggested IHEC’s promises to make polling places accessible, with ballot boxes on the ground floor, went unfulfilled. A week later, we spoke to Haidar Jassim, 40, who has a physical disability. Here is what he said:

I was so optimistic when I heard IHEC would make polling places accessible to people with disabilities.

At 11:30 a.m. on election day, I went to the polling place in my Baghdad neighborhood, in my wheelchair, full of hope that I would be able to vote. I showed my voter ID to two IHEC staff. One looked at me and said, you have to make it to the second floor. I asked if I could vote without going to the second floor. The head of the polling place said they could not move the ballot boxes downstairs, but that I could come back later in the day and he would try to think of a solution. I told them about the IHEC announcement. He said he had no information about it.

Another staff person said, “Let me give you some advice, just go back home. Your vote won’t make a difference anyway.” I was shocked. I explained that I want to exercise and enjoy my rights like anyone else. I can only conclude that he and his colleagues do not consider us to be human beings with the same rights. He then told an older man in a wheelchair to also go home without voting, and left.

I went home and changed my electric wheelchair to a lighter, manual one, and went back to the polling place with my cousin. With help from another IHEC employee, they carried me to the second floor, and I was finally able to vote.

Sadly, I know many people with disabilities who couldn’t vote in Baghdad because the polling places were not accessible. 

The IHEC should explain to Haidar, and everyone it let down on election day, why did it not implement its limited promises around accessibility, and what it is planning to do before the next elections to make sure this doesn’t happen again.





Source (Click Here)

Displaced Iraqis’ Rights Trampled Repeatedly

​The Iraqi army has unlawfully evicted dozens of families from a village north of Baghdad since July 2021 in an apparent family feud involving a government minister, Human Rights Watch said today. The 91 families from al-Aetha, a village in Salah al-Din governorate, were sent to a displacement camp without any of their possessions.

The families from al-Aetha had been forced out of their village years earlier during fighting between the government and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Many had previously been forcibly evicted by local and security authorities from displacement camps and made to return to their village. Those displaced recently say they were evicted as part of a family feud involving a government minister, who is from the village, and his brother, who had married a woman also from the village with alleged past ties to an ISIS member. The authorities should immediately halt the evictions and punish all officials responsible for the abuse of their authority.
​
“For years Iraqi authorities have claimed they are moving communities into or out of camps for their own protection or best interests,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But the case of these villagers being ping-ponged between their village and displacement camps is yet again proof that these evictions are often about the authorities’ personal or political considerations rather than the well-being of those affected.” 

Human Rights Watch has been documenting the forced evictions of families, including those with perceived affiliation with ISIS, for years. From August 1 to 5, Human Rights Watch interviewed seven al-Aetha residents in in Salah al-Din. They said that starting on July 14, Iraqi army units came to their village and evicted people by force with no prior notice and without providing any justification or presenting any lawful order. On August 10, Human Rights Watch spoke to a representative from the Ministry of Displacement and Migration who did not provide any justification for the evictions.  
​
The residents said the village had been home to 370 families – about 14,000 people – before ISIS took control in 2014. In November 2016, all of the remaining families fled as fighting increased in the area, with many settling in displacement camps. They said that in 2019, 330 families returned from displacement camps. In January 2021, the remaining 40 families returned after displacement camp authorities ordered them to return home, families interviewed said.

Villagers said that on July 14, about two dozen Iraqi army vehicles arrived in the village with a list of names and forced about 19 families out of their homes and onto flatbed trucks, including four of the people interviewed. The soldiers told the villagers they were taking them to the one displacement camp still open – in Nineveh, 15 kilometers north – but gave them no reason. Between July 31 and August 4, the army returned and took another 72 families to the camp, including two of the people interviewed.

One woman said that when the army evicted her family on July 14, a woman had tried to flee the village to avoid eviction but the soldiers stopped her: “I heard a soldier tell her that if her family didn’t come, they would arrest her husband.”

The villagers all said that the army did not allow them to take any of their possessions. The mother of six said she has no mattresses, blankets, or fans in the camp. One mother said she left her three children in the village with their uncle because she could not bring any possessions and would have nothing to make them comfortable.

The people interviewed said these new evictions had severely disrupted their lives. The mother of six said one of her sons refused to leave and fled to his grandmother’s house: “My mother told me that he is traumatized and is refusing to eat. He cries all day. My other two sons have missed their final secondary exams and are stuck here in the camp.”

Although about 270 families remain in the village, on July 12 the minister’s son said on Facebook that all of the families from the village will eventually be evicted. One woman interviewed who is still in the village she worries that they will come for her soon.

Three villagers said they believe that the evictions took place because of a familial feud. They said that in July the minister’s brother married a woman from the village who had formerly been married to an ISIS member. They said that village elders told them that the minister decided to retaliate against his brother by evicting the residents. One villager said that when he asked one of the soldiers why they were being evicted, the soldier said, “It’s because of some problem between you villagers and the minister.” The villager said: “We are being blamed for something we had no part in. We are powerless victims.”

One woman who identifies herself as a journalist on Facebook posted on July 14 that she was extending her appreciation to the minister  and the security forces for the rapid response after she had posted on July 9 about the marriage. She claimed that the minister had banned his brother from speaking to the media and from “interfering with the affairs of the displacement,” and has had all weapons and government vehicles in his possession confiscated. She also accused the villagers of being “sleeper cells and time bombs” but provided no evidence.

While some villagers had been forced to return to the village, a few said that their situation had improved after returning. One woman said she had not wanted to leave the camp at the time because she had felt safe there. But after several months in the village her situation improved; she found employment and was able to enroll her children in school. “My son was so happy we were home that he even asked me to delete all the photos we had taken inside the camp from my mobile phone,” she said.

The government has not provided any official justification for the evictions. On August 5, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi sent his national security adviser to investigate, the villagers said. The adviser interviewed some of the evicted families. Two people, including one who attended the meeting, said that someone who did not clearly identify himself beyond saying he was speaking on behalf of the minister approached her in the camp before the meeting and told her not to mention the minister’s brother’s wedding.

The authorities should immediately contact all affected families and provide them with the support they need to decide whether they want to remain in the camp, return to al-Aetha, or resettle elsewhere and provide assistance with relocating. The authorities should provide protection from future unlawful evictions.

The prime minister should ensure that those in power do not unduly influence the investigation of the evictions and that all officials responsible for the unlawful evictions are held accountable. He should also open investigations into other wrongful evictions by the authorities since he took office in May 2020, leading to public findings on the reasons and commitments to take measures to prevent illegal evictions.

“The notion that a minister can on a whim and without justification kick hundreds of people out of their homes should shock the conscience,” Wille said. “These families have been suffering for years at the hands of a government that has endorsed and sometimes participated in a range of collective punishment measures against them.”





Source (Click Here)

Over the past year the authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) have ruthlessly cracked down on journalists, activists and protesters exercising their right to freedom of expression, including by arbitrarily arresting and forcibly disappearing them, Amnesty International said today. The crackdown which first began in March 2020, intensified after widespread protests in August 2020 demanding an end to corruption and better public services.

“Authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have launched a chilling crackdown in their efforts to silence critics over the past year. They have rounded up activists and journalists and prosecuting them on trumped-up charges in unfair trials and harassing or intimidating family members who were kept in the dark about the status of their loved ones,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
​
"The Kurdistan Region of Iraq authorities must end the crackdown and immediately release all of those who have been arbitrarily detained. The authorities must also refrain from using vague and ill-defined laws to curtail the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”

The organization investigated  the cases of 14 people from Badinan, in Duhok governorate, who were arbitrarily arrested between March and October 2020 by Asayish (KRG security and intelligence) and Parastin forces (Kurdistan Democratic Party intelligence) in connection with their participation in protests, criticism of local authorities or for their journalistic work.

​All of them were held incommunicado for up to five months and at least six were forcibly disappeared for periods of up to three months. Eight of them claimed they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated during detention. On 16 February 2021, five of them were sentenced to six years in prison based on “confessions” extracted under duress.

Amnesty International spoke to former detainees, lawyers, human rights workers and journalists, and reviewed court documents. The organization documented the use of three laws that have been used to arrest and prosecute these activists, namely Law no.21 on matters of national security, a defamation law and law on the misuse of electronics, all of which contain vague and overly broad definitions of crimes that are not recognized under international law.

In the governorate of Duhok alone Kurdish security forces arrested more than 100 people between March 2020 and April 2021. Most were later released but at least 30 remain in detention, including the five activists and journalists already sentenced.
​
“Peaceful freedom of expression and journalism are not crimes. Many of those detained were tried on fabricated charges and some of those who have been released have fled the region, amidst a growing atmosphere of fear that has even seen family members of activists, journalists and protesters threatened and harassed,” said Lynn Maalouf.




Source (Click Here)

Important Step, but More Action Needed to Rein in Continued Attacks

​On February 15, Iraqi authorities detained at least four men, with alleged ties to a unit within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or Hashad, formally under the control of the prime minister) who are alleged to have killed at least four protesters in the southern city of Basra in January 2020. One of the detained men holds a senior police position. These arrests represent an important step in government efforts to fulfill its promise to hold accountable those who have abused or killed protesters, but authorities should take swift action to carry out further arrests of abusive forces where there is evidence that they are linked to recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said today.

“These arrests in Basra may represent a real change in the government’s willingness to hold its own forces accountable for perpetrating serious crimes and will help deter such abuses in the future,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should also ensure that the trials of the men are fair and devoid of any political influence.”

Protests broke out in south and central Iraq in October 2019, with violence and excessive force killing at least 487 protesters and wounding thousands more. At the same time, a range of armed forces targeted protesters with harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests, and enforced disappearances. In May 2020, then-newly appointed Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi announced the creation of a committee to investigate killings and other attacks on protesters but until now no information has been made public about the work or findings of the committee.

On February 15, al-Kadhimi announced on Twitter that “The death squad that terrorized our people in Basra, and killed innocents, are now in the hands of our heroic forces, on their way to a fair trial.” On the same day, a local media outlet publicized the names of four men detained for their alleged role in this death squad linked to the PMF Hezbollah Brigades with potential ties to another PMF unit as well. According to other media coverage, authorities arrested them for their roles in the killings of Jinan Madi, a paramedic who had been treating wounded protesters at demonstrations when she was killed, Ahmed Abdessamad, 37, a journalist, and his cameraman Safaa Ghali, 26, who had been covering the protests for Dijlah, a privately owned local station, and Mojtaba Ahmed al-Skini, 14, a protester. A source close to the government said that authorities had identified 16 men implicated in the killings, but most had already fled the country.

Given extensive documentation of the unfair nature of Iraq’s criminal justice system, which often relies solely on confessions to convict, the government and judicial authorities need to preserve the credibility of measures to rein in abusive security forces by ensuring that these trials are fair, Human Rights Watch said.

While the Basra arrests mark a positive step when it comes to accountability, PMF attacks on protesters have continued. Ali Naseer Alawy, 25, a prominent member of the protest movement in Najaf, told Human Rights Watch that on February 12, four armed masked men in black uniforms picked him up off the street within view of a police patrol, which did not intervene, at around 6:30 p.m. He said they put him into a white pickup truck with no license plate and drove him to an office where they blindfolded him and started beating his back and legs with the butts of their guns. He said, I could tell there were many men in the room who were asking me all sorts of questions about other activists’ names and who was leading the protests in Najaf. They saw I had tattooed October 25, the first day of protests in Najaf, on my arm and they tried to remove it with an acid mixture. They also attached electric cables to me and shocked my chest and legs before I fainted.
​
Alawy said that when he regained consciousness, he found himself lying on a highway outside the city near his house. It was about 1 a.m. He went to the hospital where he spoke to police but said that because he did not know who the kidnappers were, there was no point in filing a complaint. He said he believes that they must wield power since nearby police had done nothing to intervene in his abduction. He shared two photographs with Human Rights Watch that show bruising and blood on his face and scarring on his shoulder and back around his tattoo. Alawy is currently in hiding and said he still receives threatening messages on Facebook.

In addition, there has been no accountability for other killings of protesters in Basra since 2019, despite the government’s commitments. For example, on October 3, 2019, Hussein Adel Madani was shot dead along with his wife by masked gunmen who stormed their house. The couples were taking part in ongoing protest. On August 14, 2020 two masked armed men in civilian dress shot and killed activist Tahseen Osama Ali, 30, in his apartment. On August 19, 2020, Reham Yacoub, a doctor and activist in the local protest movement since 2018, was shot by an unidentifiable armed man on the back of a motorcycle. As far as Human Rights Watch is aware, the authorities have yet to arrest any suspects of these killings.

“The government can prove there has been meaningful change only when protesters no longer fear getting hauled off the streets in broad daylight and held and tortured with impunity,” said Wille.




Source (Click Here)

The Iraqi authorities must step up to their responsibilities and take immediate and effective action to put an end to a growing lethal campaign of harassment, intimidation, abductions and deliberate killings of activists and protesters in Baghdad and other cities, said Amnesty International today.

The organization has gathered testimonies of nine activists, protesters and relatives of missing activists from Baghdad, Karbala and Diwaniya who have said that what is happening is a “campaign of terror” and that “nowhere is safe” after a number of protesters and activists were killed, or abducted and forcibly disappeared in the past two weeks mostly on their way home from protests. Other protesters managed to escape after attempts were made to shoot them.

“The authorities’ utter lack of action over the past weeks has paved the way for this horrifying new stage in what is clearly a full-on attempt to crush the protests in Iraq through instilling fear among the population. The inaction of the government indicates, at the very least, acquiescence, and in some cases complicity, in the enforced disappearances, torture and unlawful killings of people who are on the streets to claim their human rights,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director.
​
“The fact that the government has resigned doesn’t mean it can abdicate its responsibilities. It remains the primary authority responsible for protecting everyone in the country, including protesters who must be allowed to assemble peacefully without fear of repercussion, let alone terror at being abducted or even shot at.”

Targeted and attempted killings
​
Activists and protesters have reported a string of assassination attempts against protesters, especially those on their way home from protest areas in the past week. According to protesters, the random targeting of activists and protesters has created an atmosphere of terror. One protester explained “We are all trying to understand the pattern. But when a regular protester and a prominent activist are likewise targeted, there is only one pattern: to terrify everyone, to target everyone.”

On 8 December, activist Fahem al-Tai, was reported to have been gunned down in the southern city of Karbala, while the body of another activist, Ali Najm al-Lami, was discovered in Baghdad in the early hours of 11 December with gunshot wounds to the head. According to activists and witnesses Amnesty International spoke to, Ali, who originally comes from Al-Wasit governorate, had been on the way to his relatives’ home from the protests in Tahrir Square.

Another eyewitness told the organization that earlier this week, masked men in a car shot at three protesters on their way home to east Baghdad from Tahrir Square. Two of them were injured.

Another protester from Baghdad said: “They shot at us, sniped us, and now they’re waiting for us in alleyways and near our homes… Before these shootings started, we had a week of what we called ‘nights of the knives’. Men and boys in regular clothes would turn up looking like protesters and would start fights. I saw one trying to sexually harass a female protester and when the boys nearby intervened to stop it, he fought them. Suddenly others were hitting the protesters, and in the chaos, three protesters were stabbed and nobody knows who did it.”

A male protester from Diwaniya described how he and another protester escaped after armed men fired six or seven shots at their car after stopping them and asking them to step out of the vehicle. He stated that he had informed the local authorities, pointing out CCTV cameras at the site of the incidents, but was informed that the cameras did not work. Officials later confirmed to witnesses that the gunmen were members of the local police.
​
Abductions and disappearances

In a pattern of disappearances and abductions, 28-year-old environmental activist and protester Salman Khairallah Salman and another protester were forcibly disappeared on 11 December in Baghdad’s al-Kadhmiyah neighborhood where they had gone to buy tents for protesters in Tahrir Square. According to Salman’s relatives, the two men did not respond to their phones after midday and by 3pm their phones seemed to be turned off. They have not heard anything about the two men since, despite enquiring with local authorities. They said: “Salman had received some indirect threats about two weeks ago that he was being watched… but he dismissed it.” The relatives informed Amnesty International that ​the two men are believed to be held in Baghdad’s Al-Muthana Airport detention facility for interrogation.

​Another female protester in Karbala told Amnesty International that on 8 December masked men on a motorcycle had attempted to force her into a black four-wheel-drive car when she was leaving protests near the city’s Tarbiya Roundabout. She explained that she had earlier in the week been questioned by a female driver about her activities in gathering donations and securing medical help for protesters in the city.

“You cannot imagine the level of fear that we all feel now. But running away is no use. Clearly, they know where activists live. They know where our families are,” one male protester from Baghdad told Amnesty International.

“They [gunmen] are everywhere but we cannot see them. There are streets [in Baghdad] that protesters avoid entirely because people disappear in their alleyways. There are protesters who have not left Tahrir Square for weeks because they do not want to risk the way home,” another protester from Baghdad added. 

A number of protesters who had been forcibly disappeared on 6 December in al-Sinek area in Baghdad after arriving in the city from Karbala were released on 11 December. Footage of the released protesters arriving in Karbala depicts them bearing bruises and unable to walk without support. One witness described one of the released protesters: “His face was blue. He had clearly been beaten.”

Protesters lamented the silence of the authorities on the abductions and attempts on the lives of those protesting, with one adding: “It’s unimaginable that all the footage from CCTV cameras have not led to one arrest. The government resigned and seems to have forgotten it still has a duty to protect people.”

​“The international community must urgently speak up and address the alarming situation in Iraq, as it takes a new dangerous turn and risks escalating further. Iraqi people have suffered too long and too much from succeeding cycles of violence. There has to be a stop to it,” said Lynn Maalouf.

Amnesty International has continuously called on the Iraqi authorities to put an end to the relentless campaign of intimidation against protesters across the country since the outbreak of protests in October. The organization has documented security forces’ use of lethal force, including live ammunition, against peaceful protesters, their use of military-grade tear gas canisters causing horrific lethal injuries, as well as abductions and enforced disappearances since protests broke out October 1.




Source (Click Here)

Since 2016, I have visited over a dozen camps across Iraq housing families accused of having a father, husband, or son affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). I have spent dozens of hours sitting in the tents of women struggling to figure out how they can get out of the camp, where they are effectively being confined by security forces as punishment for what their relative might have done, so they can offer their children the chance to have a normal life. While all these interviews have been heart-breaking, my visit to Ishaqi camp is the one that has haunted me the most.

In early December 2018, after hours of negotiations, a unit of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or Hashad, nominally under the control of the prime minister) finally let me into the infamous camp in Salah al-Din governorate. Unlike other camps, it had no presence or services from international or local organizations. The fighters themselves were the camp’s “management.” Most organizations that tried to enter the camp had been turned back by the fighters, who ran the site as a prison. Of the more than 400 residents, I saw only about 30 men, all older than 60.

At one point I was able to slip away from the fighter assigned to monitor my interviews. The moment he was out of earshot, women stopped talking about the horrific camp conditions, including the lack of fuel and the chronic diseases, and instead started rapidly firing names at me -- dozens and dozens of names of men. They said that a month after security forces brought them to the camp there was a nearby bombing. Afterward, the fighters promptly rounded up all 52 men in the camp between the ages of 17 and 57, accusing them of some link to the bombing, and took them away, along with a few younger boys. Their family members never heard from them again or knew their fate.
​
For 30 minutes, all I did was write down names, including of boys as young as 10. Before I left, at the request of the women, I tore the filled pages out of my notebook and hid them in my pocket so that the guards would not find them if they searched me.

A few weeks ago my heart sank when I saw a local news article that dispelled any hope that the men whose names I had taken down may be alive, perhaps in a secret prison somewhere. The authorities had just discovered a mass grave next to the camp, which apparently contained the remains of more than 50 people, including children as young as 8 or 10.

I am losing track of the number of times I have documented allegations of killings in Iraq, only to read in the news several months or years later that a mass grave was discovered right where the killings allegedly occurred. And yet I cannot remember a single time where any mass killings by Iraqi forces were investigated.
​
Until late 2020, tens of thousands of Iraqis, mostly women and children, were living in camps, some that functioned as de facto prisons, because the government and their local community wanted to punish them for their relative’s perceived roles in ISIS by preventing them from returning to a normal life. This changed in October, when the government moved to close all camps across the country, stripping the families of access to food, water, shelter, and health care, and leaving them with nowhere to go and no men left to earn a living.

The authorities closed Ishaqi camp in November. The residents were freed but as with many of the others freed from the camps, other units of fighters are controlling their villages and are not allowing them to return home. So they have been left to fend for themselves. Women across Iraq in the same position have told me and others that they feel unsafe and are at risk of sexual violence.

The mostly women and children who were held prisoner in Ishaqi camp for years deserve to go home, or make a new home elsewhere, and the government should be throwing its full might behind protecting and supporting them.

But these former residents also deserve to know what happened to their loved ones, and impunity for abusive security forces needs to end. The Iraqi authorities can begin to address this apparent atrocity by opening a credible investigation into the incident, starting by locating the former camp residents, many of whom are currently living in squalid conditions in an abandoned train station nearby, to interview them about the details of their relatives’ disappearance and take DNA samples to help identify the remains of those found in the mass grave.

The international community has a role to play too. In 2017 the United Nations Security Council decided to create a team, UNITAD, to help the Iraqi government document and prosecute the grave crimes committed by ISIS, including by exhuming mass graves in Iraq. But it chose to exclude from UNITAD’s mandate investigations into the grave crimes that Iraqi security forces committed in the battle against ISIS.

One-sided justice in Iraq will not serve anyone’s interests, and the families from Ishaqi camp deserve justice for abuses against their loved ones just as much as every victim of ISIS does. The international community needs to have the courage to push as hard for judicial investigations into these abuses as well




Source (Click Here)