UN condemns Iraq’s mass hanging of accused ISIS fighters
By
Bill Van Auken
18 December 2017
The human rights arm of the United Nations has declared that it is “shocked and appalled” over the mass hanging of 38 men accused of being members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Al Qaeda at a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah last Thursday.
The mass execution was ordered by the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi less than a week after it proclaimed victory in the war against ISIS, the Islamist militia that overran roughly a third of the country beginning in 2014. The hangings constitute yet one more war crime in the bloody US-backed war in Iraq and Syria that has claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives.
This is the second mass hanging to be carried out by the Iraqi regime in less than three months. On September 25, 42 people were executed at the same prison.
“We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution on Thursday,” UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
“Given the flaws of the Iraqi justice system, it appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases,” the UN spokesperson added. “This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life.”
Amnesty International issued a statement condemning the mass hanging: “The death penalty should not be used in any circumstances and especially in Iraq, where the government has a shameful record of putting people to death after deeply unfair trials and in many cases after being tortured to ‘confess.’”
Among those executed in the latest mass hanging was a man in his 60s, who has been in Iraqi jails since 2010 as a suspected…