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Kurdish Activists Confirm Damning Human
Rights Report
6.7.2007
By IWPR staff and contributors (ICR No. 226)
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Security forces in Kurdistan are accused of holding
suspects without charges and subjecting them to
physical abuse.
July
6, 2007
Kurdistan (Iraq)
Human rights advocates in northern Iraq say the
findings of a new report accusing Kurdish security
forces of systematic mistreatment of detainees come
as no surprise, and express scepticism that
international pressure will end such practices.
In a report issued on July 3, the New York-based
group Human Rights Watch said the security forces in
Iraqi Kurdistan routinely torture detainees and deny
them the right either to have a fair trial or to
challenge their detention.
The Kurdish Regional Government has pledged to
investigate the allegations of abuse.
Human Rights Watch investigators interviewed more
than 150 detainees and Kurdish security officials
from April to October 2006. The advocacy group
recommended that Iraqi Kurdistan significantly
change its detention and legal practices by
requiring that detainees be either charged or
released, denouncing torture and ensuring fair
trials.
The kind of violations outlined in the 58-page
report were not news to human rights activists in
Iraqi Kurdistan.
"We know that arrests have been made without
warrants; torture has been carried out; and
detention facilities operate with minimal human
rights criteria," said Sarwar Ali, a lawyer and a
human rights activist at Democracy and Human Rights
Development in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
Iraqi Kurdistan's main political parties – the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan – each have their own security
force, both called Asayish. The Asayish units
function independent of government agencies and
answer to their respective political party masters
more than to the executive, according to Human
Rights Watch and local Kurdish activists.
"The party security establishments function outside
the law, and many people are detained for several
years without charges," said Ali.
Detainees told Human Rights Watch that security
forces beat them with cables and metal rods and
placed them in stress positions for prolonged
periods. Most detainees were not officially charged
and many were deprived of legal counsel, trials and
visitors while in prison, the organisation
maintained.
"Most of the [detainees] so far don't know what they
are charged with," Mike Eisner, an adviser to Human
Rights Watch, told IWPR. "They have no lawyers, and
their families don't know where they are and how
long they will be in prison."
Some detainees who had been acquitted were still
being held, and most detention facilities were
severely overcrowded and unhygienic, according to
the report. Human Rights Watch also expressed
concern at reports that United States and Iraqi
government forces had transferred detainees who had
not been formally charged to Kurdish detention
facilities.
"The Kurdish authorities talk a lot about the
principles of freedom and human rights, but this
report and the US State Department's [human rights]
report prove that democracy and human rights are no
more than words in this region," said a lawyer, who
asked not to be named because he works for the
government.
"Asayish has the utmost power."
The Asayish forces are tasked with detaining
individuals suspected of security-related crimes
including terrorism.
However, they have also detained journalists and
protesters - usually for short periods of time - and
have also been accused of holding members of
opposition Islamic parties. Security forces
frequently claim that these detainees are suspected
terrorists, while Islamic party members say they are
political prisoners.
A security source in Kurdistan’s capital Erbil, who
spoke on condition of anonymity as is customary,
denied that Asayish tortures or otherwise mistreats
its detainees.
"We never resort to abuse," he said.
Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for Omar Fatah, deputy
prime minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government,
admitted there were "some illegal activities”, but
he insisted, “These are carried out by individual
members of the security forces.
They are not acting on instructions, and it is not
systematic."
Abdullah said the Kurdistan government is taking the
Human Rights Watch report seriously. Kurdistan Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani ordered copies of the
report sent to the Asayish in Sulaimaniyah and Erbil
- where the PUK and KDP, respectively, are dominant.
Abdullah said the government would investigate all
cases of mistreatment "in a manner consistent with
human rights principles".
Human Rights Watch said it was given full access to
Asayish detention facilities and held several
meetings with Kurdish officials. The organisation
said the regional government had reviewed some cases
and released hundreds of detainees, but it
maintained that these efforts "have not translated
into any discernible improvement for most detainees
in Asayish detention facilities".
The organisation also criticised the Kurdistan
National Assembly's human rights committee for not
putting more pressure on the government to change
its policies after committee members visited
detention facilities.
The Kurdish government released 70 prisoners in June
under a new amnesty law, but Goolnaz Aziz, a member
of the human rights committee, said this did not
apply to detainees held without charge.
The report could tarnish the image of Kurdistan’s
government, which promotes the northern region as a
progressive, safe "other” Iraq.
"We are part of the new political process in Iraq,
and one of the major roles is to guarantee human
rights at the prisons and detention centres. Such
reported cases of abuse negatively impact the
reputation and the credibility of the Kurdistan
Regional Government," said Abdullah.
Rabin Ahmed Hardi, a prominent writer and critic in
Sulaimaniyah, said the international community may
be surprised by the report because the KDP and PUK
have "painted a beautiful picture of Iraqi
Kurdistan".
"It's too optimistic to think that the Kurdish
parties will change their dictatorship-like
behaviour immediately. It has become a part of their
mindset," he said.
Hardi said international pressure would probably not
change human rights policies in the region.
"Pressure needs to be mounted on the parties within
Kurdistan," he said. "Newspapers, intellectuals and
the public should talk about those violations and
other issues constantly until the parties respond."
IWPR correspondents Talar Nadir in Erbil, Rebaz
Mahmood in Sulaimaniyah, and IWPR’s Kurdish editor
Mariwan Hama -Saeed, currently in the United States,
contributed to this report.
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