UN criticises Iraq human rights
Thousands of Iraqis have been detained without charge or trial
The UN has sharply criticised the Iraqi government's human rights record, in the two months since a security plan was launched in the capital, Baghdad.
The UN mission for Iraq said Iraqi authorities had failed to guarantee the basic rights of about 3,000 people they had detained in the operations.
The report said four million Iraqis were at risk because of lack of food.
A statement from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki dismissed the report as lacking credibility.
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq report again called for access to Iraqi government files on civilian casualty figures.
The challenges facing the government of Iraq are not limited to addressing the level of violence in the country, but also the longer term maintenance of stability and security in an environment characterised by impunity, a breakdown in law and order
UN Assistance Mission in Iraq report
The Iraqi authorities disputed figures in the previous UN report.
The UN said in January that 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded in 2006. These figures were much higher than any issued by Iraqi government officials.
The UN said those figures were provided by Iraqi government ministries.
Mass arrests
The UN report, which covers the period from the 1 January to 31 March 2007, said that some 3,000 thousand people have been arrested in security sweeps since the Baghdad security plan began in mid-February and it condemned Iraq for failing to guarantee due process rights to those taken in.
REPORT KEY FACTS
3,000 people arrested since launch of Baghdad security plan in mid-February
37,000 people detained in Iraqi and US prisons, many without charge or trial
200 academics killed since 2003 and 12,000 doctors have fled the country
54% of Iraqi live on less than a US dollar a day
69% unemployment rate
Unami Human Rights Report [242KB]
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It also criticised the court system in general saying that deliberations at some trials involving life imprisonment or the death penalty only lasted for minutes.
Overall, more than 37,000 people are being held in Iraqi and American-run prisons, many of whom have not been charged or sent for trial.
The report describes the situation in Iraq as a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis".
It said daily living conditions were worsening despite billions of dollars earmarked for reconstruction efforts - an estimated 54% percent of Iraqis lived on less than a US dollar a day while the unemployment rate had risen to 60%.
In wide ranging report on many aspects of life in Iraq, also highlights the deterioration of the freedom of expression affecting media and media workers, religious and ethnic minorities and academics who are continuously targeted by religious extremists and armed groups in all areas of Iraq.
Universities were being targeted with 200 academics killed since 2003, and 12,000 doctors had fled the country.
The report also describes how there was collusion between the Iraqi security forces and militia groups involved in the sectarian violence.
Thursday, April 26, 2007 - Page updated at 01:03 AM
BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi government has refused to provide the United Nations with civilian casualty figures for its latest report on the hardships facing Iraqis, the world body said Wednesday, but numbers from various ministries indicate more than 5,500 people died in the Baghdad area alone in the first three months of 2007.
The numbers, provided to the Los Angeles Times by employees in government ministries who insisted on anonymity, could not be verified.
At a news conference to unveil the U.N.'s 10th report on the human-rights situation in Iraq since August 2005, the spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, Said Arikat, said the government had given no "official" reason for not issuing casualty figures.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government rejected the report for its criticisms of the country's judicial system, saying it "lacks accuracy" and balance. Among other things, the United Nations said some prisoners in Iraqi detention facilities faced torture, were forced into confessing to alleged crimes and were denied adequate access to lawyers.
U.S. Embassy officials also faulted the findings, saying the criticism of the legal system, in particular, contained inaccuracies. U.S. officials also defended al-Maliki's decision to withhold casualty figures. "There were sometimes concerns with political motivations" in the release of data, one U.S. Embassy official said.
Criticisms of the U.N. findings come amid growing impatience with a U.S.-Iraqi security program that has failed to quell violence, despite thousands of additional troops in Baghdad and neighboring provinces.
Nine Iraqi soldiers were killed today and 15 people were wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Iraqi army checkpoint in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, police said. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber struck a police station northeast of Baghdad, killing four officers. Explosions, shootings and mortar attacks killed at least 41 people elsewhere in Iraq.
The U.S. military said a U.S. soldier died Tuesday in a noncombat incident. No further details were released. At least 3,334 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war, according to an Associated Press count.
Arikat said it was too early to judge the success of the security plan, but he made it clear violence remained out of control. "There's insurgent violence, there's criminal violence, there's military violence, there's all kinds of honor killings and so on," he said. "Violence has many tentacles. It's like an octopus."
In its previous report, in January, the United Nations said 34,452 civilians had died in violence last year, based on information from government ministries, hospitals and medical officials. The Iraqi government put the toll at 12,357. The numbers obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicated civilian deaths numbered 1,991 in January, dropped to 1,646 in February, when the security plan began, and rose to 1,872 in March.
The trend was similar to that suggested by www.icasualties.org, which monitors civilian and military deaths in Iraq and bases its count on news reports. It estimates 4,766 civilians died from January through March: 1,711 in January, 1,381 in February and 1,674 in March.
IRAQ: "Last chance" for gov't to restore order
26 Apr 2007 13:17:08 GMT
BAGHDAD, 26 April 2007 (IRIN) - While the Iraqi government has dismissed a recent UN human rights report exposing the failures of the US-backed Baghdad security plan, local analysts agree with its findings and say authorities should adopt immediate measures to protect the population.
"It [the government] should react immediately or quit," said Mohammed Nasser Jamil, a Baghdad-based political analyst who lectures in international relations at the University of Baghdad. "The country is falling apart and is at its worst point. It needs real recovery and meaningful plans should be put in place to save the people of this country."
Released on Wednesday, the report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) paints a bleak picture of many aspects of life in the war-weary country. Incessant violence, ever-growing numbers of displaced people, increased targeting of minority groups and professions, rising food insecurity and widespread human rights abuses have fuelled a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis", the report said.
Despite the joint coalition-Iraqi security plan, 'Operation Law and Order', being in place since 14 February, UNAMI described the current environment in Iraq as "characterised by impunity, a breakdown in law and order".
"The government should know that militants are fleeing Baghdad to other areas of the country. It should follow a new military strategy to chase them out of Baghdad or engage with local tribes nationwide to fight these militants, if it doesn't have enough military personnel," Jamil said.
Up to eight million vulnerable
The UNAMI report said up to eight million of Iraq's 26 million inhabitants were "vulnerable" and in need of immediate assistance. Four million were at risk because of a lack of food.
It expressed "utmost" concern at the apparent lack of judicial guarantees in the handling of about 3,000 suspects arrested and detained in security sweeps over the past two months in the context of the security plan. The report condemned the continued "use of torture and inhuman treatment" in detention centres though the prime minister had "pledged that the government would respect human rights".
In its immediate reaction to the report, the Iraqi government called the UNAMI assessment "inaccurate" and "unbalanced" and warned that it put the UN's credibility at stake.
"The Iraqi government announced its deep reservations about the report that is inaccurate in presenting information; it lacks credibility in many of its points. Also, it lacks balance in presenting the situation of the human rights situation in Iraq," the government said in a brief statement.
However, not far outside the government's confines, in the heavily guarded Green Zone area, political analysts say the government is in denial over the extent of the crisis in the country and must change its perceptions and actions immediately.
"A plan 'B' should be adopted by the government and US forces. Otherwise, no one will be spared of his life," said Tawfiq Abdul-Rahman al-Nasih, a Bagdad-based analyst and retired law expert who is also a columnist in many local newspapers.
"Government officials and politicians should go ahead with the reconciliation plan [Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's 24-point reconciliation plan, launched on 25 June this year] and make concessions to each other to save this county from falling into an abyss," al-Nasih added. "This is the last chance for the government and it should review all its plans before it's too late."
In its human rights report, UNAMI said that the Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the UN, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine its security efforts.
Civilian casualties remain high
Working with its own figures, UNAMI said civilian casualties in the daily violence between 1 January and 31 March remained high, and was concentrated in and around Baghdad.
In its last report, which was issued in January, UNAMI said that 34,452 civilians were killed last year, including 6,376 in November and December alone, based on information from the Iraqi Health Ministry, hospitals across the country and the Medico-Legal Institute [the mortuary] in Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said these figures were inflated.
The UNAMI report also highlighted the plight and needs of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs).
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization of Migration (IOM), about 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since 22 February 2006, when sectarian violence erupted after the bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. These IDPs are in addition to the 1.2 million people who were displaced before the Samarra bombing.
"Women and children make up three quarters of the newly displaced. Rape, threats of rape, domestic violence, disappearances and detentions after displacement remained a major concern. Many IDPs had irregular or no access to basic services, especially electricity, water, education and health," the 30-page report said, adding that the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration "bears primary responsibility for the coordination of protection and assistance to IDPs".
Analysts said getting to the root of the widening sectarian divide is the only way to stem the violence and ensuing displacement in Iraq. But doing that would require a definitive pull-out date for all foreign forces.
"The government should bring Shias, Sunnis and Kurds together and have all Iraq's segments to take part in decision-making, not excluding anyone," said analyst al-Nasih. "It should also to reconsider discussing a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces to lure those who are relentlessly fighting them and convince them to join the political process."
Kaboooomba...
Iran Gives $1 Billion in Credit to Iraq
Wednesday May 2, 2007 6:31 AM
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has extended $1 billion in credits for reconstruction projects in Iraq, a senior official said Tuesday ahead of an international conference on stabilizing Iraq.
Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said a committee of experts from both countries was discussing possible development projects, including some involving energy, the state-run news agency IRNA reported.
``We are prepared for implementation of economic projects in Iraq. For this purpose, we have allocated $1 billion in credit,'' IRNA quoted Larijani as saying.
His comments came two days before Iran joins the United States, European powers and Arab countries at a conference in Egypt to discuss a plan for stabilizing Iraq.
Iran's decision to participate has raised the possibility of a rare direct encounter between high-level U.S. and Iranian officials.
But Larijani, who spoke in the Iraqi holy Shiite city of Najaf, criticized the United States on Tuesday, accusing its former ambassador to Iraq of meeting with terrorists.
``We have information that the United States is holding talks with terrorists. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq talked to the leaders of these groups several months back,'' he said, without providing details.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, has acknowledged that U.S. and Iraqi officials talked to representatives of insurgent groups hoping to draw more Sunni groups away from al-Qaida. Current U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said last month that U.S. authorities will not talk with ``terrorists,'' apparently distinguishing between al-Qaida in Iraq and Sunni insurgents opposed to the political process.
The U.S. has long accused Iran of providing weapons to insurgents in Iraq, a charge the country denies. Iran, a Shiite Muslim country with close ties to Iraq's majority Shiite population, says it does not allow fighters to cross into Iraq, but it does not rule out that such people might cross the long border illegally.
IRAQ-SYRIA: Iraqi doctors welcome refugee agency contribution for hospitals
DAMASCUS, 1 May 2007 (IRIN) - Iraqi doctors in Damascus have welcomed the announcement today by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) that it is contributing US $2 million to the Syrian Ministry of Health towards the strengthening of medical facilities available for more than one million Iraqi refugees in Syria.
“Many Iraqi refugees need urgent medical help and Syrian private hospitals are too expensive,” Ayad Tariq, an Iraqi doctor who fled Baghdad in July 2006, told IRIN.
“I’m doing nothing here and I want to help the other refugees, even if I work for free. Most of the Iraqi doctors here are unemployed and we need and want to be practicing,” he said. Iraqi refugees are forbidden by the Syrian government from seeking employment.
The sum brings to US $9.6 million the amount that UNHCR has pledged this year to help the Syrian government provide vital services to the estimated 1.2 million Iraqi refugees currently residing in Syria.
“This is nearly 10 million [US dollars] we have given to the Syrian government and the Red Crescent to support them in what they are already doing for Iraqi refugees and in recognition of the huge burden those refugees impose,” Sybella Wilkes, UNHCR spokeswoman in Damascus, said.
The latest contribution, which is exactly US $2.06 million, is to be used for the provision of medical equipment and services as well as the rehabilitation of Damascus hospitals in an effort to meet the growing health demands of the Iraqi refugee population.
Though technically entitled to state health care in Syria, Iraqi refugees are often unable to obtain it, and are forced to seek private care, for which many have scant resources to pay.
The funds will be used to relieve “the added pressure that the refugees are putting on the existing system”, said Wilkes, adding that the refugee crisis is currently “pushing the limits of the [Syrian health] system”.
UNHCR estimates that more than two million Iraqis have fled Iraq since the US-led war began in March 2003, with more than one million of them fleeing to Syria. Thousands more continue to enter the country each month.
Working with the Syrian Ministry of Health and Syrian Arab Red Crescent, UNHCR is also currently involved in plans for a new hospital for Iraqi refugees.
Many Iraqi refugees need urgent medical help and Syrian private hospitals are too expensive.
The Zahera hospital, which is due to open in October 2007, will be largely staffed by Iraqi doctors.
With the Syrian government struggling to cope with the sheer numbers of refugees in its country, UNHCR launched an international campaign in January to raise US $60 million to assist host countries. In April, an international conference was held in Geneva calling on the international community to respond to the growing Iraqi refugee crisis.
http://www.esnips.com/doc/5a8efe0b-267b-4f4e-af0f-529ad92ad4ff/05-Wedding-Day
LOL.. Maybe I should vist my pretend GF more often. She'll be stuffed for a few years now, but that's good cause it means less slaves & dead people. Thank God the mods were living in a fantasy world where children run through the paddocks throwing daisies in the air, giving each other hugs & singing praises to God. They werent even there. 😛.
Originally posted by MerkWasn't it the US Envoy to the UN, John Bolton, who said that 'if you removed the top ten floors of the UN building, it wouldn't make any difference to its functioning'? Or words to that effect.
These clowns just got the chair on a U.N. panel on sustainable developement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070517/bs_afp/zimbabweeconomyinflationprices
"The... annual inflation rate at the end of April rose to 3,713.9 percent," the state-run Herald newspaper reported Thursday quoting figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
"This means ...[text shortened]... mum-Bobs™ government as a chair of panel on sustainable develpement? If not, why not?
He's right of course. The UN is gravy train of fat lazy "yes" men.
Well, the superpowers of the day raised no objections to the creation of the U.N. because they knew the fledgling organization could be manipulated or ignored as the occasion warrants. The U.S., in particular, has cynically contrived to turn the U.N. into a rubber-stamping "yes man" in order to lend its unilateral policies and the brutal actions of its client states an air of international legitimacy. For this sole reason the U.S. Empire tolerates the other things that the U.N. does that do not directly contribute to the advancement of U.S. interests (read: the interests of American investors and corporations, principally).