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At least vocally. How often do you hear AI discuss Iran or Iraq? They have a webpage slamming Iran’s human rights records. Torture, arbitrary detention, supression of the press, discrimination, denial of Freedom of Expression, organized murder, and horrific treatment of women, among others.
Amnesty also has several interesting pages on Iraq, including this one from December 2002, which discusses torture, false imprisonment, tens of thousands of prisoners missing, extensive use of the death penalty, organize, state run maiming, and horrific treatment of women, among others. Yet, where was AI during the run up to war with Iraq? Where are they now, when the only country they are slamming is the United States, despite the USA and its Coalition partners having stopped most of what was going on in Iraq?
Amnesty Int’l said, in a 1999 article
- Â Gross human rights violations are systematically taking place in Iraq. They range from arbitrary arrest and detention, to torture, extrajudicial and judicial executions after unfair summary trials, ”disappearances”, and forcible expulsions on the basis of ethnic origin.
- Â Detainees are routinely physically and psychologically tortured during interrogation. Torture takes place immediately following arrest and methods can be as extreme as gouging out of the eyes.
- Â The death penalty is used on a massive scale in Iraq and covers a wide range of criminal and political offences. Hundreds of executions are reported every year.
- Â These mass human rights violations and the climate of terror inside the country have forced thousands of Iraqi nationals to flee the country illegally and seek asylum in neighbouring countries, but also in many other countries worldwide.
- Â In April 1999 the UN Commission on Human Rights strongly condemned the ”systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror”,
Gee, that sounds worse then putting panties on some guys head and scaring them with dogs and mostly naked women, eh? Yet AI said little to nothing about the horrors of life under Hussein during the run up to war, as the war was going on, or afterward.
Will they say anything about Iran’s human rights violations, or will they come down against the USA, as usual? They seem to want to blame the US for the deaths of media folks in Iraq. They say the US is creating a “climate of torture.” Yet, I cannot seem to find anything about the executions of gays and rape victims in Iran. I wonder why?
Update: Mike Pecher points out, over at the Jawa Report and Interested Participant, that women are still barred from public events, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final word. Will Amnesty International decry this?
Amnesty International consistently condemned the human rights situation in Iraq up to and including the month that U.S. forces were deployed. Here’ a snippet from a press release that we issued in March 2003:
Amnesty International is calling on the United Nations (UN) Security Council to authorize the deployment of UN human rights monitors throughout Iraq and on the Iraqi government and the Kurdish authorities controlling parts of northern Iraq to provide the monitors with all the necessary access and cooperation.
In a new paper released today, Iraq:The need to deploy human rights monitors, Amnesty International argues that UN human rights monitors can make a crucial contribution to addressing human rights concerns in Iraq regardless of whether there will be a major military action in Iraq.
Human rights monitors can make a difference. They are needed now to address the current grave human rights concerns in Iraq. They would also play a crucial role in the immediate aftermath of any possible large-scale military action against Iraq, as the human rights situation in the country may deteriorate further. In the longer term a human rights field presence in the country would provide necessary expertise and advice for legislative and institutional reform and the establishment of the rule of law.
Human rights monitors would seek to provide protection by pro-actively addressing the authorities. They would work to ensure the establishment of durable human rights safeguards, including reformed legislation, practices and institutions, and promote the full range of human rights.
In addition, human rights monitors would provide the Security Council and other organs of the UN with much needed authoritative and timely information on human rights developments in Iraq.
The deployment of human rights monitors has been called for since 1993 by the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. Between 1994 and 1998 monitors gathered information on behalf of the Commission’s Special Rapporteur on Iraq by visiting countries neighbouring Iraq. The Iraqi government has granted access to the Special Rapporteur, but has not allowed the stationing of human rights monitors in the country.
Read more here:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/iraq/document.do?id=80256AB9000584F680256CE100534A7A
There’s also a full report:
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE140122003?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\IRAQ