Iraq’s Allies Should Condemn Lethal Crackdown by Security Forces

​Today the UN Human Rights Council will hold a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session to examine Iraq’s human rights records. The rash of killings of protestors by Iraqi security forces over the past month should at the front of diplomats’ minds as they shape their recommendations.

At least 147 protesters were killed by security forces in protests in Baghdad and Iraq’s southern cities in early October; more than 100 have been killed in a second wave since October 25.

In the second wave, Baghdad security forces have fired teargas cartridges not just to disperse crowds, but in some cases directly at protesters, a brutal form of lethal force. The UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) documented 16 protesters killed by teargas cartridges striking their heads or chests. Amnesty International has identified that some of the teargas cartridges Iraqi forces are using to kill protesters were made in Iran.

Total Security Force Killings Since Protests Resumed at Over 100

​Security forces have fired teargas cartridges directly at protesters in Baghdad, Iraq on numerous occasions since protests resumed on October 25, 2019, killing at least 16, Human Rights Watch said today. The dead are among the large number of protesters Iraqi forces have killed since daily protests began in Baghdad and in other cities in southern Iraq against corruption and for better public services, among other demands.

According to a November 5 United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) report, the nationwide death toll from October 25 through November 4 reached at least 97. The Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) tallied at least 105 dead and 5,655 injured during that same period. From November 5 to 6, Reuters reported that security forces had killed at least six more protesters.

“The high death toll includes people who took direct hits to the head from teargas cartridges, in numbers that suggest a gruesome pattern rather than isolated accidents,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “With the death toll now at over 100, all of Iraq’s global partners should be unequivocal in their condemnation.”

Anbar Province Detains, Harasses People for Facebook Posts

Authorities in Iraq’s Anbar governorate are suppressing the right of residents to show support for demonstrations elsewhere in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. In recent days, they have arrested two men for merely posting messages of solidarity on Facebook, questioned a third, and sent a fourth into hiding.

Since October 25,  2019, the authorities throughout Iraq have detained hundreds of protesters at or after demonstrations, but the Anbar arrests stand out in that authorities arrested the men merely for showing their support over social media.

“Despite years of terrible conflict, many Iraqis have felt free to speak out on political issues,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “But these cases mark a disturbing change, if you contrast these men’s entirely peaceful political statements with the completely inappropriate response by the Anbar authorities.”

Protests started in Baghdad and southern cities on October 1, demanding improved services and more action to curb corruption. Security forces used excessive lethal force against protesters during the first wave of demonstrations from October 1 to 9, and again starting on October 25. Eight Anbar residents told Human Rights Watch that Anbaris did not intend to hold protests there, concerned that authorities would not allow them given the recent history of ISIS taking control over much of the governorate.

Recent developments suggest that the US and its allies have become increasingly wary of China’s expanding influence inside Iraq, even while Washington continuously points out the threat supposedly posed by Iran instead.

​Over the past few weeks, Iraq has slowly but surely begun its re-descent into chaos. According to reports, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest Iraq’s current state of governance, with over 250 already being killed in clashes with security forces. One protester even died last week, after being hit in the chest by a tear-gas canister in Baghdad. At the time of writing, Iraqi protesters have just stormed Iran’s consulate in the holy city of Karbala, resulting in four further deaths and at least 19 injuries.

I can’t help but notice that, when Iraq is being ruled as a US client state, clashes with security forces that see hundreds of civilian deaths are no big deal. It’s not as if the US can hustle the international community to legitimize another invasion of a country it’s invaded twice before. It does therefore ring quite hypocritical when the sole basis of Washington’s call for the Syrian government to step down in 2011 seemed to be based on allegations of a similar fact scenario. But that is a topic for a separate article.

Then again, it was the US who plunged Iraq into chaos to begin with. The US, together with the UK, toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, fired close to 500,000 police and military personnel (which to some extent contributed to the rise of ISIS), and facilitated the deaths of over one million Iraqi civilians in the process.

Protests and the violent response of the government have shredded the myth of state-sponsored sectarianism as the organizing principle for political power.

​The persistence and magnitude of protests in Iraq since early October and the brutality of Iraqi government forces and militias seeking to crush them have shaken the country. More than 275 protesters have been killed and thousands injured, but the protests continue unabated.

Iraqis initially protested against corruption, unemployment and the failure of the government to deliver services, but after a month of brutal state violence, the protesters have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a complete overhaul of the political process in the country and disbanding of powerful political factions and their militias, most of which are backed and run by Iran.

The Iraqi government and the political elite have failed to respond in any significant manner to the protesters. On Thursday, Barham Salih, the president of Iraq, promised to draft a new electoral law, claiming that it would allow more young people to join the political process and put an end to the current system of deal-making in government formation. He also promised to reform the country’s election commission by bringing in independent experts as its members. And yet these promises were quickly dismissed by protesters as too little, too late — cosmetic changes aimed at upholding a discredited political system.

​Iran’s leaders say they have no wish to recreate the Persian empire in the present-day Middle East. Unlike the US, they say, Iran is not an imperialist power. That is not how it looks to many people in Lebanon, where Iran’s close financial and military links to the country’s leading Shia political organisation, Hezbollah, became the focus of angry anti-government street protests last week.

The benign view of Iran as friendly neighbourhood helper is also hard to square with its support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, where the death toll in four years of war has reached 100,000. This conflict resembles a classic proxy struggle between two external powers – Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia – that are each vying for regional dominance.

The pervasive influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps within Iran’s hardline clerical establishment, and its close ties to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are key factors shaping what moderates worry is a risky policy of geopolitical overreach. Most prominent among the hawks is Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, head of the IRGC’s elite Quds force.

So it was no surprise, perhaps, that Soleimani turned up in Iraq last week as mass demonstrations in Baghdad and other, mainly Shia, cities threatened to topple the government. Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraq’s prime minister, owes his job to Iran, which became the main powerbroker after most US forces pulled out in 2011. Iraq is another non-province of Iran’s non-empire and Soleimani was not about to let it slip away.

**UPDATE [7 November 2019]**

Amnesty International has conducted further research into the 40mm “less lethal” grenades killing protesters during the recent violence in Baghdad. The new analysis showed that, in addition to the Serbian Sloboda Ĉaĉak M99 grenades already identified, a significant portion of the deadly projectiles are in fact M651 tear gas grenades and M713 smoke grenades manufactured by the Defense Industries Organization (DIO) of Iran.
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The Bulgarian company Arsenal has sold grenades and other arms to Iraq, including hand-thrown smoke grenades used during the recent protests in Baghdad. However, Amnesty International misattributed the provenance of some of the 40mm grenades in our original press release. We have corrected this in the text below.

Since first publishing our findings on 31 October, Amnesty International has reviewed and verified video evidence of four additional deaths caused by the Serbian and Iranian grenades and has received a significant number of additional photos of the weapons, via sources on the ground. It was through analysing this new evidence that Amnesty International was able to make this identification.
Amnesty International does not have information on the identities of the security forces firing these Iranian M651 and M713 grenades in Baghdad.  
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The deadly grenades must be recalled from use immediately. There should be an independent, impartial and transparent investigation into their use and into other cases of unlawful killings and injuries during the protests, with any security forces responsible for excessive use of force held to account.


​CONTENT WARNING: Some of the information and imagery below is very graphic and some users might find them disturbing.
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The Iraqi authorities must ensure anti-riot police and other security forces in Baghdad immediately stop using two previously unseen types of tear gas grenade to kill rather than disperse protesters, Amnesty International urged today after its investigation found they caused at least five protester deaths in as many days.

Amnesty International carried out telephone and email interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, reviewed medical records and consulted medical professionals in Baghdad as well as an independent forensic pathologist about the horrific injuries caused by these grenades since 25 October.

The organization’s Digital Verification Corps geolocated and analyzed video evidence from near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square documenting the fatalities and injuries – including charred flesh and “smoking” head wounds. Its military expert identified the types of tear gas grenades being used as two variants from Bulgaria and Serbia that are modelled on military grenades and are up to 10 times as heavy as standard tear gas canisters, resulting in horrific injuries and death when fired directly at protesters.

Iraqi security forces resorted yet again to excessive and unlawful lethal force to disperse crowds of largely peaceful protesters in the southern city of Karbala last night, said Amnesty International, after at least 14 protesters were reported killed and more than 100 injured.

Evidence gathered from eyewitnesses and verified geo-located video footage indicates that Iraqi security forces and anti-riot police opened fire using live ammunition as well as tear gas, chasing peaceful protesters staging a sit-in at the Tarbiya roundabout on 28 October. Witnesses also said security forces attempted to run them over with vehicles.  

“In horrific scenes from Karbala last night, Iraqi forces opened live fire on peaceful protesters and resorted to excessive and often lethal force to disperse them in a reckless and utterly unlawful manner. These scenes are all the more shocking as they come despite assurances from Iraqi authorities that there would be no repeat of the extreme violence used against demonstrators during protests earlier this month,” said Lynn Maalouf, Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.
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“According to international law, security forces should refrain from the use of firearms unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious injury and there is no suitable alternative available. Eyewitness accounts clearly suggest that was not the case. Iraqi authorities must immediately rein in security forces to prevent further bloodshed.”

Iraqi security forces on Monday fired tear gas at school and university students who defied a warning from the prime minister and joined anti-government protests that have left more than 200 people dead over the past month.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose position is increasingly precarious as he faces the largest challenge since he came to power a year ago, said on Sunday that anyone disrupting work or school days would be severely punished.

Mass street protests in Baghdad and other cities in the southern Shi'te heartland against economic hardship began at the start of the month and resumed on Friday after a pause of about two weeks.
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Thousands of Iraqi protesters had gathered in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on Sunday, defying a bloody crackdown that had killed scores over the previous two days, and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them.

Iraq’s recent wave of protests against poverty, a lack of basic services, unemployment, and the interference of Iran in the country’s domestic affairs showed a country at the end of its tether. Official figures put the number killed in the violent crackdown of protesters at 157.

Since 2011, protests and popular movements that challenged elite dominance or questioned the government have been violently repressed. The presence of Iran has increased as the Shiite-dominated government in Iraq has become dependent on the Iranian Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) to maintain order in Iraq. Indeed, there have been reports that snipers were deployed by Iranian-backed militias in the latest round of protests in October.

The problems for Iraq are deep-rooted and institutional, and if not addressed may yet escalate into a full scale revolution. What’s needed is reform of the country’s 2005 constitution, which was written during a period of political instability after a war and occupation ridden by conflict. The only way for Iraq to have a chance at prosperity and peace is by addressing its flawed foundations which were heavily influenced by the occupiers.
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Iraq’s 2005 constitution, which was influenced by the US, failed to create a unified, representative government. Ambiguities within the document have been abused by those in power and it has exacerbated sectarian divisions within Iraq’s politics. The constitution created a system in which public sector and government roles are allocated based on sect and ethnicity.