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Iraq Letter to United Nations Security Council In a letter to the Ambassador Richard Holbrooke President of the United Nations Security Council Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations Security Council to tighten controls on Iraq's ability to import weapons-related goods, but lift most restrictions on non-military trade and investment in order to address the country's continuing humanitarian crisis. January 4, 2000 Letter Also available in 
Printer friendly version Jordan Urged To Detain Iraqi Number Two For Trial Saddam Hussein Deputy Accused of Genocide, Torture, Mass Murder Human Rights Watch asked the government of Jordan to hold Iraq's number two leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, for trial or for extradition on charges that he is among those responsible for crimes of genocide, torture, and mass murder August 18, 1999 Press Release Printer friendly version Letter to Jordanian Prime Minister In a letter to Jordanian Prime Minister Abdur-Ra'uf Rawabdeh , the international monitoring organization asked them to hold Ibrahim for trial in Jordan or to extradite him to a country able and willing to try him. August 18, 1999 Letter Printer friendly version Letter to King Abdallah In a letter to King Abdallah, the international monitoring organization asked them to hold Ibrahim for trial in Jordan or to extradite him to a country able and willing to try him. August 18, 1999 Letter Printer friendly version Austria Blasted for Release of Iraqi Jordan Urged to Arrest Saddam Hussein Aide Accused of Genocide An Iraqi leader accused of genocide, mass murder, and torture was released today by the Austrian government. The move was quickly criticized by Human Rights Watch. August 18, 1999 Press Release Printer friendly version Prosecution of Iraqi in Austria Urged Saddam Hussein Aide Accused of Genocide, Murder and Torture A senior Iraqi leader accused of genocide, mass murder, and torture should be prosecuted by Austrian authorities, Human Rights Watch said today. February 17, 1999 Press Release Printer friendly version Avoid Harm to Iraqi Civilians, Says Rights Group Clinton and Blair Urged to Take Extraordinary Precautions Bill Clinton and Tony Blair must take all possible steps to protect civilians from injury in the attack on Iraq. December 16, 1998 Press Release Printer friendly version Letter to Clinton Human Rights Watch writes to you to highlight our concern that all feasible steps be taken to avoid death or injury among Iraqi civilians in the event of war with Iraq. November 10, 1998 Letter Letter to Blair Human Rights Watch writes to highlight our concern that all feasible steps be taken to avoid death or injury among Iraqi civilians in the event of war with Iraq. November 10, 1998 Letter Human Rights Watch Criticizes Iraq's Execution of Four Jordanians In a letter today to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Human Rights Watch expressed its deep concern over the execution of Walid Muhammad Tawfiq Nusseirat, Riziq Bishara Riziq, Sa`id Yusif `Ali al-Doji, and his brother Salah al-Doji. December 12, 1997 Press Release Also available in
Printer friendly version Iraq's Brutal Decrees Amputation, Branding and the Death Penalty eginning in June 1994, the government of Iraq issued at least nine decrees that establish severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion. These new decrees greatly impinge on individual human rights and constitute violations of several international human rights conventions and standards. The government of Iraq attempts to deflect international criticism of this cruelty by maintaining that the decrees were enacted to combat rising crime which, it says, is due to the poverty and desperation brought on by international economic sanctions. By implying that if sanctions are lifted and the situation improves the decrees could be repealed, Iraq appears to use these abuses as leverage for the lifting of sanctions. While arguing that the decrees serve as a deterrent to crime, the government has offered no information that they are serving this purpose. June 1, 1995 Report Iraq’s Crime Of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds Iraq’s 1988 Anfal campaign of extermination against the Kurdish people living within its borders resulted in the death of at least 50,000 and as many as 100,000 people, many of them women and children. This book, co-published with Yale University Press, investigates the Anfal campaign and concludes that this campaign constituted genocide against the Kurds. The book is the result of research by a team of Human Rights Watch investigators who analyzed eighteen tons of captured Iraqi government documents (10 of these documents are reproduced in the appendix) and carried out field interviews with more than 350 witnesses, most of them survivors of the Anfal campaign. It confirms that the campaign was characterized by gross violations of human rights, including mass summary executions and disappearances of many tens of thousands of noncombatants; the widespread use of chemical weapons, among them mustard gas and nerve agents that killed thousands; the arbitrary jailing and warehousing of tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly people for months, in conditions of extreme deprivation and without judicial order; the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers to barren resettlement camps after the demolition of their homes; and the wholesale destruction of some two thousand villages along with their schools, mosques, farms, and power stations. The book is a searing indictment of the Iraqi government’s carefully planned and executed program to destroy a people, harrowing in its detailed and objective recounting of crimes against innocents. HRW Index No.: ISBN 0-300-06427-6 May 1, 1994 Report Bureaucracy of Repression: The Iraqi Government in Its Own Words In two separate shipments in May 1992 and August 1993, eighteen tons of official Iraqi state documents captured by Kurdish parties in the 1991 uprising arrived in the U.S. for safekeeping and analysis. Our team has conducted research on these documents and catalogued a large percentage. This is the first report that discusses these documents, most of which had never before been made public, and serves the broader effort to provide evidence that the Anfal campaign by the government of Iraq against its population of rural Kurds in 1988 amounted to genocide. HRW Index No.: 1-56432-127-4 February 1, 1994 Report Background on Human Rights Conditions, 1984-1992 Containing background information about human rights violations in Iraq gathered in mid-1992 from victims, eyewitnesses and family members currently living in exile in Syria and Jordan, this report serves as a supplement to our Human Rights in Iraq (1990) and Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and its Aftermath (1992). It examines some of the methods used by the regime’s security apparatus to maintain control of Baghdad and southern Iraq after the post-war March 1991 uprisings were crushed, and includes detailed testimonies about other human rights abuses. August 1, 1993 Report Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds A narrative account of the Iraqi government’s organized attempt to eradicate the Kurds living in northern Iraq, this report captures in riveting detail the multiple phases of the Anfal campaign. Anfal, meaning "the spoils," is the name of the eighth sura of the Koran. It is also the name given by the Iraqis to a series of military actions that lasted from February 23 until September 6, 1988. Relying in part on previously unpublished Iraqi government documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the Gulf War, Genocide in Iraq reveals a meticulously organized campaign incorporating prison camps, firing squads and chemical attacks. The campaigns of 1987-1989 were characterized by mass summary executions and the mass disappearance of many tens of thousands of noncombatants, including large numbers of women and children, and sometimes the entire population of villages; the widespread use of chemical weapons; the wholesale destruction of some 2,000 villages, including homes, schools, mosques and wells; the looting of civilian property; the arbitrary arrest and jailing in conditions of extreme deprivation of thousands of women, children and elderly people; the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers; and the destruction of the rural Kurdish economy and infrastructure. Genocide in Iraq is the product of almost two years of research, during which we analyzed tons of captured Iraqi government documents and carried out field interviews with more than 350 witnesses, most of them survivors of the 1988 campaign. As a result of this painstaking work, we conclude that the Iraqi regime committed the crime of genocide. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-108-8 July 1, 1993 Report Scientific First: Soil Samples Taken from Bomb Craters in Northern Iraq Reveal Nerve Gas - Even For the first time ever, scientists have been able to prove the use of chemical weapons through the analysis of environmental residues taken years after such an attack occurred. In a development that could have far-reaching consequences for the enforcement of the chemical weapons treaty, soil samples taken from bomb craters near a Kurdish village in northern Iraq by a team of forensic scientists have been found to contain trace evidence of nerve gas, GB, also known as Sarin, as well as mustard gas. April 23, 1993 Report The Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Destruction of Koreme Just as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to an end in 1988, the Iraqi government and army embarked on a vengeful campaign against Kurdish villagers living in Iraqi Kurdistan. Taken from a Koranic verse, Anfal refers to "the plunder of the infidel," and evidently was intended to give the campaign the veneer of religious justification, though the Kurds are Muslim, and Iraq is a secular state. Using a similarly destructive pattern throughout northern Kurdistan, the Iraqi army first attacked a chosen village — often with chemical weapons — captured the villagers as they tried to flee, then pulverized their dwellings. Many villagers were later killed. The Kurdish village of Koreme serves as a case study of this campaign, showing how the policies of Saddam Hussein’s government were implemented. Some of Koreme’s captured men and boys were executed on the spot, the remainder were taken to a local army fort or Ba’ath Party office where they disappeared while in the hands of security agents. Surviving Koreme villagers — starving women, children and the elderly — were transferred by truck to bleak camps. Middle East Watch and Physicians for Human Rights conclude that the Iraqi government’s Anfal campaign, constituting murder, forcible disappearance, involuntary relocation, the refusal to provide minimal conditions of life to detainees, chemical weapons attacks against civilians, and the physical destruction of Kurdish villages, are at a minimum, crimes against humanity. Ultimately, they may form the basis for a case of genocide. HRW Index No.: ISBN 0-300-05757-7 December 1, 1992 Report Hidden Death: Landmines and Civilian Casualties in Iraqi Kurdistan Decades of internal conflict with the Kurds and another nine years of international strife — first with Iran and then with the U.S.-led coalition — have left much of northern Iraq littered with millions of unexploded landmines. Hidden Death documents this neglected tragedy, a clear breach of international humanitarian law, which has already produced thousands of casualties among innocent civilians trying to return home and rebuild their lives. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-067-7 June 1, 1992 Report Endless Torment The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath Saddam Hussein's record of brutally suppressing even mild dissent is well-known. When the March 1991 uprising confronted his regime with the most serious internal challenge it had ever faced, government forces responded with atrocities on a predictably massive scale. The human rights repercussions continue to be felt throughout the country. In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities. One year later, the fate of thousands of Kurds and Shi'a who were seized during the suppression of the uprising remains unknown. While many are believed to be in detention, the government has provided little information about their location and legal status. The rebels also committed gross abuses during the uprising, summarily executing suspected members of the security forces, including many who were in custody. June 1, 1992 Report Unquiet Graves The Search for the Disappeared in Iraqi Kurdistan Across northern Iraq, Kurds, freed for now from President Saddam Hussein's grip, have begun revealing the horrors of nearly a quarter of a century of repressive rule. In former Iraqi police stations and prisons, Kurdish officials have discovered torture chambers and execution sites where they say thousands of political prisoners died under torture or were shot in the 1980s. Meanwhile, municipal grave diggers and villagers, now free to tell their stories, have led Kurdish investigators to hundreds of unmarked, single and mass graves. The Kurds have long charged the Saddam Hussein government with gross violations of human rights. Some especially severe cases have been independently substantiated and widely publicized;[1] most notably the attacks with chemical and conventional weapons on Kurdish towns and villages in the late 1980s in which thousands--and most likely tens of thousands--were killed. But it was not until the March 1991 uprising, when the Kurdish resistance fighters, or peshmerga,[2] drove the Iraqis from the region, that the systematic nature, and extent, of Baghdad's repression became fully known. February 1, 1992 Report << Previous 1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next >> |
   Investigation in Iraq, April-May 2003 Video slideshow
Related Material Films screened in the HRW International Film Festival 2002: Jiyan 2002: Marooned in Iraq 2000: Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains | |||||||||||||||
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