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Human Rights Violations in Iraq

U.N. Security Council Resolution 688 (April 5, 1991) condemned Saddam Hussein’s repression of the Iraqi civilian population. The resolution also requires Saddam Hussein to end his repression of the Iraqi people and to allow immediate access to international humanitarian organizations to help those in need of assistance.

Saddam Hussein has repeatedly violated these provisions and has expanded his violence against women and children, continued his horrific torture and execution of innocent Iraqis.

Saddam has continued to violate the basic human rights of the Iraqi people and has continued to control all sources of information (including the killing of over 500 journalists in the past decade).

Saddam has also harassed humanitarian aid workers, expanded his crimes against Muslims, has withheld food from families that refuse to offer their children to his regime and has continued to subject Iraqis to unfair imprisonment.

The government of Iraq uses military force to repress civilian populations throughout the county, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the destruction of entire villages.

Iraq has refused to allow the U.N.’s special Rapporteur for Human Rights to return to Iraq since his first visit in 1992. It has also refused to allow the stationing of human rights monitors as required by the U.N. resolution.

In September 2001, the Iraqi government, without explanation, expelled six U.N. humanitarian relief workers, who until 1992 ensured the delivery of humanitarian relief services.

Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial or arbitrary executions throughout the country. The total number of prisoners that have been executed in the past five years runs into thousands, including hundreds of arbitrary executions in the last months of 1998 at the Abu Gharib and Radwaniyah prisons near Baghdad.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Iraqi regime destroyed over 300 Kurdish villages. The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes continues today in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq.

In northern Iraq the government is continuing its campaign of forcibly deporting Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern governments. As a result, approximately 900,000 citizens are internally displaced throughout Iraq.

Human rights organizations and opposition groups continue to receive reports of women who suffered from severe psychological trauma after being raped by Iraqi personnel while in custody. These personnel also videotape the rape of female relatives of suspected oppositionists and use the videotapes for blackmail purposes to ensure their future cooperation.

Iraqi security agents reportedly decapitated numerous women and men in front of their family members. According to Amnesty International, the victims’ heads were displayed in front of their homes for several days.

Iraq’s 1988-1989 Anfal campaign subjected the Kurdish people in northern Iraq to the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population. In the town of Halabja alone, an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and over 10,000 were injured.

In March 1999, the regime shot and killed grand Ayatollah al Sayid Muhammad SADIG AL Sadr, the most senior Shi’a religious leader in Iraq. Since 1991, dozens of senior Shi’a clerics and hundreds of their followers have been murdered or arrested, and their whereabouts remain unknown.

In 2000, the Iraqi authorities reportedly introduced tongue amputations as a form of punishment for persons who criticize Saddam Hussein or his family.

The Iraqi security services routinely torture detainees. According to former detainees, torture techniques include branding, electric shocks to the genitals, beating, burning with hot irons, suspension from rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on the skin, rape, breaking of limbs, denial of food and water, and threats to rape or otherwise harm relatives.

There are widespread reports that food and medicine that could have been made available to the general public, including children, have been stockpiled in warehouses or diverted for the personal use of government officials.

Amnesty International reported that Iraq has the world’s worst record for numbers of persons who have disappeared or remain unaccounted for.

Saddam Hussein does not permit freedom of speech or freedom of the press and does not tolerate political dissent in areas under his control. In November 2000, the U.N. General Assembly criticized Saddam Hussein’s “suppression of freedom of thought, expression, information, association, and assembly”.

The Special Rapporteur stated in October 1999, that citizens lived “in a climate of fear”, risking arrest and interrogation by the police or military intelligence. He noted that “the mere suggestion that someone is not a supporter of the president carries the prospect of the death penalty”.

Iraqi Involvement in Palestinian Terrorism

There is no doubt that the Iraqi regime, led by Saddam Hussein, supports Palestinian terrorism. The Iraqis are so bold that they do not even attempt to deny their involvement in supporting and encouraging terrorist attacks, especially suicide bombings, against Israeli civilians.

Iraqi assistance comes in various forms, including the passage of funds to families of terrorists, training and directing terrorists and using propaganda to ensure that Palestinian society continues to support the armed conflict.

Iraq is vehemently opposed to any Palestinian, Arab or international political initiative aimed at ending the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians. The Iraqi regime has a keen interest in the perpetuation and even escalation in the violence between the two sides.

First, Iraq’s blatant support for the continued armed conflict, i.e. terrorism, strengthens Hussein’s status in both Palestinian society and in the entire Arab world. In addition, when the world focuses on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, it has less time to pay attention to Iraq. This allows the Iraqi regime to temporarily avoid the spotlight that has been placed upon them over the past few months.

Iraqi Prize Money
One of the central ways in which Saddam Hussein has supported Palestinian terrorism has been through providing financial rewards to families of terrorists who have been killed while perpetrating their attacks. The different amounts of prize money offered for different attacks illustrates the Iraqi regime’s preference to see more and more suicide bombings.

The Iraqis have mechanisms in place, that work in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority, to pay the families of suicide attackers US$25,000. Families of terrorists who are killed while carrying out their attacks receive US$10,000. These funds serve as an incentive for families to sacrifice their loved ones, as well as provide them with financial stability which they fail to enjoy during this time of conflict.

It has been estimated in the media that Iraq has thus far transferred more than US$20 million to families of Palestinian terrorists. This is done with the full cooperation of the Palestinian Authority.

The “Arab Liberation Front,” as well as the Iraqi Ba’ath party operating in PA areas serve as the “payment contractors” within the framework of this terrorism encouragement policy.

Terrorist operations
Another terrorist organization, the “Palestinian Liberation Front,” headed by Muhammad Zaydan (Abu al-Abbas), serves as an operational body for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. This is the same organization that carried out the terrorist attack aboard the Achile Lauro ship in 1986, in which Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair stricken U.S. citizen, was murdered.

Arrested PLF activists have confessed to having received military training in Iraq. They have been instructed to carry out attacks against both Israeli civilian and military targets. The PLF is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of 19-year old student Yuri Gushchin as well as the planting of an explosive device at the “Checkpoint” junction in Haifa.

Endless Incitement
Finally, the Iraqi regime incessantly uses propaganda to incite the Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world, to eliminate the State of Israel. Stories and messages to the Palestinian public are literally “bought” in the Palestinian press. The propaganda isn’t limited to Israel, but is also directed at the United States and the rest of the Western democratic world.

Summary
Hussein stated on Iraqi television on March 4, 2002, “We are glad for the Istishhadiyyah [suicide bombers] and heroic spirit of the Palestinian people. By Allah, what the Palestinian people do is beyond my expectations…”

Combining comments like this with the infrastructure Iraq has built to give out prize money to families of terrorists, there is no doubt that Iraq is a prime player in the terrorist attacks against Israel.