Since 1 October, Iraq's quota-based mode of governance known as 'muhasasa' has been in remission, after protests denouncing a system as inherently corrupt swept the nation. 

​Unforgivable violence from state forces, abductions and hundreds of martyred young people has brought the muhasasa to its knees.

The political model, born in Beirut following the cessation of hostilities and the 1989 Taif Accord advances a mirage of representation, and places the key to prized ministries in the hands of inexperienced politicians who have bled state resources dry, through contracts and clientelistic appointments.

The situation has reached a tipping point in not only Iraq, but Lebanon too. The people are staging their own coup, as politicians scramble to disassociate themselves from corrupt parties and claim 'independence'.

Iraq is home to thousands of US troops and is also home to powerful Iranian-backed militias. The fear is that Iraq could become the battleground of a war between the United States and Iran.

​The revolts that have swept over Iraq since 1 October 2019 come at a critical moment of increasing tensions between Iran and the United States, both allies of the Iraqi government.

Rivalry between the US and Iran increases
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On August 29, 2019, the International Crisis Group published a report calling for the US-Iran conflict not to be settled in Iraq.

​Retired Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who kept his Trident pin after President Trump intervened in his war crimes case, met with the commander in chief ahead of the Christmas holiday to “thank” him with a “little gift” from his service in Iraq. 
 
“Finally got to thank the President and his amazing wife by giving them a little gift from Eddie’s deployment to Mosul,” Gallagher and his wife, Andrea, captioned a set of photos with Trump and the first lady at their Mar-a-Lago estate. The images were posted on Instagram Saturday. 
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In one of the images, Trump, standing beside Melania and Andrea, holds the present. Exactly what Gallagher gave the president wasn’t disclosed.  

Chief Petty Officer Gallagher, a member of the elite Navy SEALS, was accused of war crimes and charged with multiple counts of murder, including shooting and killing an unarmed elderly man and a schoolgirl while deployed in Iraq and fatally stabbing a teenage ISIS fighter who was brought in for medical treatment. He allegedly posed for a picture with the prisoner’s body. ​

A Swedish court on Friday sentenced a 46-year-old Iraqi man to 2 1/2 years in prison on charges of spying for Iran by gathering information about Iranian refugees in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.
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The man, identified as Raghdan al-Hraishawi in court documents, was convicted by the Stockholm District Court of carrying out illegal intelligence activities by collecting information about minority Iranian Arabs, known as Ahvazis.

Sweden’s intelligence agency said al-Hraishawi, who has both Iraqi and Swedish citizenship, was arrested on Feb. 27. He denied the charges and claimed he only was working as a reporter. Parts of his trial were held behind closed doors.

​Al-Hraishawi obtained permanent residence in Sweden in 2009, according to the verdict, obtained by The Associated Press.

مقال عن نظم التجسس عن بعد المستخدمة في العراق من قبل الحكومة

​A tool of coercion or public security

​The state of Iraq is struggling to exert control over its territory. As a result, remote surveillance is being used to enhance the effectiveness of policing. However, constant surveillance may have a negative impact on emerging state–society relations.

Surveillance to preempt threats

Islamic State remains active across Iraq, particularly in rural parts of Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Diyala and Anbar. The Iraqi security forces and their Western allies are using surveillance to enhance security by detecting attempts at infiltration, military movements or other suspicious activities. Drones make it possible to track the movement of suspects across large areas.

Surveillance is about risk management. The core idea is that the more data is collected, the more effectively it can be used not only to deter and investigate crimes, but also to preempt threats. The downside is that everybody on the ground is treated as a potential risk until proved otherwise. This blurs the difference between civilians and combatants. The problem is underscored by an expansion of the kinds of data that are collected and considered a matter of security.

US, UK, Iran, and Others Should Withhold Military Aid

​Unidentified armed forces, apparently in cooperation with Iraqi national and local security forces, carried out a brutal spate of killings in Baghdad’s main protest area on December 6, 2019, Human Rights Watch said today. Estimates range between 29 and 80 dead, and 137 injured. Electricity to the area was cut during the attack, making it harder for protesters to identify the killers and flee to safety. Police and military forces withdrew as the unidentified militia, some in uniforms, began shooting.

The killings come three months into protests in Baghdad and southern Iraq, in which the death toll has reached 511 people, according to the Ministry of Health. Given the level of unlawful killings by the state forces, countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Iran – that provide military and law enforcement training and support to Iraq – should end such assistance until the authorities take effective action to stop the killings and hold abusers to account. The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva should hold a special session into the killings of protesters in Iraq.

“The US, UK, and Iran can’t have it both ways, calling on the Iraqi government to respect the rights of protesters while supporting the Iraqi forces killing protesters or standing by,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “With killings of protesters continuing day after day, they should end this support.”

Five witnesses to the killings told Human Rights Watch by phone that on December 6 about 1,000 protesters were present in Baghdad’s al-Khilani Square, 600 meters north of Tahrir Square, and in al-Senak Garage, a five-story parking garage just off al-Khilani Square they had been occupying since November 16. At about 7:30 p.m., they said they saw seven pickup trucks speed into al-Khilani Square and slow down. As the vehicles drove through the square slowly, gunmen in plain black uniforms and civilian dress opened fire with AK-47s and PK machine guns above the protesters, before lowering and firing directly at them. At the time, the witnesses said the prote​sters were gathered peacefully and not threatening any violent acts.

New Violations Belie US Reference to ‘Isolated Atrocities’

​An Iraqi government investigation into alleged abuses against civilians during military operations to retake Fallujah is being kept under wraps. New reports of serious abuses by the Popular Mobilization Forces and Federal Police compound the summary killings, enforced disappearances, and torture reported since the beginning of the operation, which Human Rights Watch documented.

​On June 4, 2016, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi opened an investigation into allegations of abuse and three days later announced unspecified arrests and the “transfer of those accused of committing violations to the judiciary to receive their punishment according to the law.” Government officials, however, have not provided information in response to Human Rights Watch inquiries since mid-June about the status of the investigation, who is conducting it, or steps taken so far.

“Failing to hold fighters and commanders accountable for grave abuses bodes very badly for the looming battle for Mosul,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “Serious investigations and prosecutions are essential to provide justice to victims and their families, and to deter atrocities by government forces.”

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.
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“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.”

منظمة "هيوما رايتس" تطالب الحكومة العراقية بالكف عن استهداف المتظاهرين قتلا وخطفا واعتقال وسط ارتفاع لهذه العمليات

​Government Should Stop Abuses Against Protesters

​As protests in Iraq enter their third month, the numbers of arrests, abductions, and killings of protesters continue to rise. But instead of protecting the demonstrators mostly peacefully protesting on Iraq’s streets, some security forces are the ones attacking and killing them. Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi had promised in a letter to Human Rights Watch that security forces would no longer use live ammunition against protesters, before announcing his own resignation on November 29. But killings and abductions of protesters have continued.

Since the beginning of these protests, Human Rights Watch has also documented unidentified armed men attacking protesters while the state security forces apparently stand by. Last week alone, these unidentified actors abducted one protester in Baghdad and opened fire on another in Karbala, killing him.

In early October 2019, in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in many of Iraq’s other major cities, young Iraqis took the streets, chanting slogans such as “with life and blood we defend you, Iraq.” To those unfamiliar with the specifics of political and social life in the Middle East, where sectarian divisions often trump national identities, this may not have seemed like a big deal. It may have seemed, in fact, like just one more of the countless mass protests that have engulfed the region over the past decade.

In both respects, however, these observers would be wrong. The chants were a big deal. And the protests, while not entirely unprecedented, were nevertheless a sharp break from the norm. Because, for the first time in recent memory, Iraqis weren’t demanding their rights under the banner of any specific religious or ethnic group, but their rights as Iraqi citizens. And they weren’t demanding privileges—they were demanding the fall of a system that has worked to keep them apart, and that has been feeding into the pockets of corrupt elites to the detriment of ordinary citizens.

To understand why this embrace of nationality is so important, however, a look into the recent past is necessary. Under Iraq’s current model of ethno-sectarian balancing [paywall], established after the United States-led invasion of 2003, coalition governments hand out ministerial positions and budgets according to the proportion of the country’s sectarian populations—Shiite or Sunni Muslim Arabs, and Kurds. This has led to staggering corruption in which the elite’s control over government ministries, major enterprises, and media has actively worked to maintain the status quo. Spawned in the aftermath foreign occupation, this form of governance has benefitted few and served as little more than a failed attempt for perpetual ceasefire, rather than a sustainable system of government meeting the needs of the Iraqi people.
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Corruption and sectarian favoritism in the public sector have played a major role in entrenching sectarian division among Iraqis and have led to rampant unemployment and lack of access to basic services. Transparency International ranks Iraq as the 18th most corrupt country in the world; according to official figures cited in a report from the Telegraph, since 2004, a remarkable $450 billion in public funds have been unaccounted for. Meanwhile, about a quarter of the country’s young population is unemployed, while access to clean water and electricity is unreliable at best.