The use of torture and forced confessions is widespread in Iraq’s criminal justice system, and authorities carry out countless judicial executions despite major due process abuses. Authorities employed a variety of defamation and incitement provisions in Iraqi legislation to silence dissidents, including journalists, activists, and protestors.
Students who were kept out of school for months due to countrywide school closures, many of whom were unable to access any remote education, and were particularly harmed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Iraq’s penal code, which dates back to 1969, includes plenty of defamation crimes, including insulting the Arab community or insulting any government official, regardless of whether the allegation is genuine. Although just a few people were sentenced to prison for slander, the criminal process was a punishment in and of itself. Reporting on security forces corruption and abuses is extremely dangerous.
ISIS suspects were unlawfully imprisoned by Iraqi forces for months, if not years. Security forces routinely held detainees without a court order or arrest warrant, according to witnesses and family members, and frequently did not disclose a justification for the detention. Authorities also detained demonstrators without prosecution and released them afterwards, some within hours or days, and others within weeks.
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq released a report reviewing the criminal justice system in January 2020, based on independent monitoring of 794 criminal court hearings, 619 of which were for men, women, and children charged under Iraq’s dangerously broad counterterrorism legislation. It agreed with Human Rights Watch’s findings that in terrorism-related trials, basic fair trial standards were not respected.
Criminal detainees were held in overcrowded and, in some cases, inhumane conditions by authorities. According to media sources, authorities released 20,000 convicts in April as a precautionary step in regard to the Covid-19 outbreak, but did not reveal the identity of those released or the criteria used to select them.
Iraq, along with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, had one of the highest rates of executions in the world. Many of people convicted of ISIS affiliation were sentenced to death under counterterrorism legislation, and executions were carried out without official figures being released.
Thousands of Iraqi families were denied security clearances needed to get identity cards and other important civic documents because authorities suspected them of being affiliated with ISIS, mainly due to their surname, tribal connection, or place of birth. This restricted their freedom of movement, education, and employment opportunities, as well as their access to social benefits and birth and death certificates, which are required to inherit property or marry.
Under international human rights legislation and customary law, the right to freedom of expression, as well as the rights to association and peaceful assembly, is protected, as is the right to access and exchange information. These rights are not only vital in and of themselves; they are also critical in ensuring that all other rights—civil, political, economic, social, and cultural—are available to all people.
Washington Center For Human Rights argues the Iraqi government to respect international human rights by having a policy that protects it and ensure conducting human rights due diligence and provide a remedy for human rights breaches. We call on the Iraqi government to investigate the mass human rights violations and provide victims the right to justice, truth, redress, and reparations beyond financial compensation.