Amnesty: Iraq still one of world’s worst danger zones

AMNESTY International yesterday 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 the world,” it said in a 24-page report, entitled Carnage and Despair: Iraq Five Years On.

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, the report found.

More than four out of 10 Iraqis lived on less than $1 (64 cent) 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.

“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.”

The failure to investigate alleged abuses “is one of the most worrying aspects for the future”, he added.

“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.

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.

“Despite claims the security situation has improved in recent months, the human rights situation is disastrous,” the group said, highlighting the kidnap, torture and murder of civilians by armed groups.

“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.

Amnesty pointed to the detention of about 60,000 people by the Iraqis and multi-national forces, most of them without charge, saying torture, ill-treatment of prisoners and miscarriages of justice were “routine”.

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 responsible to justice.

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.

Other estimates have put the number of civilian deaths as a result of the conflict between a conservative 48,000 and 601,000.