LONDON – Amnesty International on Monday said the rights situation in Iraq five years after the US-led invasion was “disastrous” and that the country had turned into one of the world`s most dangerous zones.<\/p>\n
“Five years after the US-led invasion that toppled (former president) Saddam Hussein, Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world,” it said in a 24-page report, entitled “Carnage and Despair. Iraq Five Years On”.<\/p>\n
Against a backdrop of insecurity, law and order and economic recovery were a “distant prospect” while most Iraqis were living in poverty, with food shortages, lack of access to safe drinking water and high unemployment.<\/p>\n
More than four in 10 Iraqis lived on less than one US dollar a day — the UN standard for measuring poverty — while the health and education systems were at near collapse and women and girls at risk of violence from extremists.<\/p>\n
“Saddam Hussein`s administration was a byword for human rights abuse,” said Amnesty`s director for Middle East and North Africa, Malcolm Smart. “But its replacement has brought no respite at all for its people.”<\/p>\n
The failure to investigate alleged abuses “is one of the most worrying aspects for the future”, he added.<\/p>\n
“Even when faced with overwhelming evidence of torture under their watch, the Iraqi authorities have failed to hold the perpetrators to account — and the US and its allies have failed to demand that they do so,” he said.<\/p>\n
Amnesty also criticised the extensive use of the death penalty, the international community`s failure to cater for Iraqi refugees and despite the more stable situation, the lack of free speech in the Kurdistan region.<\/p>\n
“Despite claims that the security situation has improved in recent months, the human rights situation is disastrous,” the London-based group said, highlighting the kidnap, torture and murder of civilians by armed groups.<\/p>\n
“All sides have committed gross human rights violations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it added, referring to militia groups, Iraqi security forces, US-led troops plus private and military security guards.<\/p>\n
Amnesty pointed to the detention of about 60,000 people by the Iraqis and multi-national forces, most of them without charge, saying torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and miscarriages of justice were “routine”.<\/p>\n
But it said no-one, including the divided Iraqi government, appeared serious about investigating claims of abuse, torture, rape and murder of civilians and bringing those reponsible to justice.<\/p>\n
A recent World Health Organisation and Iraqi health ministry report estimated that 151,000 people were killed between the start of the invasion on March 20, 2003 and June 2006.<\/p>\n
Other estimates have put the number of civilian deaths as a result of the conflict between nearly 48,000 and 601,000.<\/p>\n
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LONDON – Amnesty International on Monday said the rights situation in Iraq five years after the US-led invasion was “disastrous” and that the country had turned into one of the world`s most dangerous zones. “Five years after the US-led invasion that toppled (former president) Saddam Hussein, Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[38],"class_list":{"0":"post-2708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"category-human-rights","8":"tag-iraq"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}