United Nations

UNAMI Issues 10th Report on the
Situation of Human Rights in Iraq

United Nations UNAMI Press Release 25apr2007

[Full Report 242 Kb PDF at UN website - Other news agency articles below]

Baghdad, 25 April 2007— The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) issued its tenth report on the human rights situation in the country covering the period 1 January to 31 March 2007. Beginning with this report a decision to switch issuance of human rights reports from a by-monthly to a quarterly timeframe was taken to allow time for particular issues to be more fully and comprehensively researched and followed up, and allow time for UNAMI to issue periodic thematic reports focusing on specific issues of human rights concern during the reporting period.

The report expresses UNAMI’s concerns over rampant violations of human rights standards by insurgency and various armed groups, and recognizes that these crimes have targeted civilians, law enforcement personnel and government employees. In such an enormously challenging environment the Iraqi Government has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to protect human rights in line with its international and national obligations. Despite progress cited in the report, it also notes frequent failures of the Iraqi rule of law institutions to protect the life and dignity of all Iraqis in a manner that conforms to the international humanitarian and human rights laws. These incidents are highlighted in order to help the Iraqi authorities at all levels identify areas where further efforts must be made and where the United Nations and international community remain ready to assist the Iraqi Government. The protection and promotion of human rights for all Iraqis must be the foundation of the Government’s national reconciliation efforts.

Unlike previous reports, the new UNAMI Quarterly Human Rights report does not contain official statistics of violent deaths regularly gathered by the Ministry of Health and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad. This is because the Iraqi Government decided not to make such data available to UNAMI. This is a matter of regret because UNAMI reports have been regarded as a credible source of information regarding developments in the human rights situation in Iraq. UNAMI will continue to speak with the Iraqi authorities and urge them to provide the necessary information, collected by the Ministry of Health and the Medico-Legal Institute.

With regard to the ongoing Baghdad Security Plan (BSP), the report states, “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 characterized by impunity, a breakdown in law and order.” UNAMI is concerned that large numbers of Iraqis, among them professional groups and law enforcement personnel, continued to experience intimidation and killings. It also notes continued political interference in the affairs of the judiciary, a matter in need of urgent attention.

The Report describes the deterioration of the freedom of expression affecting, media and media workers, religious and ethnic minorities, professional-groups including academics who are continuously targeted by religious extremists and armed groups in all areas of Iraq. It outlines the key human rights concerns relating to detention and internment, lack of judicial oversight and treatment of detainees and prisoners and expresses UNAMI’s concern over the apparent lack of judicial guarantees in the handling of suspects arrested in the context of the BSP.

On displacements the report states, “According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an estimated 736,422 persons were forced to flee their homes due to sectarian violence and military operations since the bombing of the al-Askari Shrine in Samarra’ on 22 February 2006. Of these, more than 200,000 were displaced since December 2006. Together with 1.2 million IDPs displaced prior to 22 February 2006, they are in need of continuous assistance, including shelter and improved access to the Public Distribution System (PDS).”

source: 25apr2007

UN Raps Iraq for Withholding "Grim" Civilian Toll

YARA BAYOUMY / Reuters 25apr2007

(Writes through with government reaction, U.N. quote)

BAGHDAD —The United Nations criticised Iraq's government on Wednesday for not disclosing politically sensitive civilian casualty figures and said the humanitarian crisis there was rapidly worsening.

Violence continued as a suicide attacker walked into a police station in the volatile Diyala province and detonated a bomb, killing nine and wounding 16, police said.

The government also scrambled to alter a U.S. plan to enclose a Sunni enclave in Baghdad with concrete walls, after residents and political parties said it would fan sectarian tension and compared it with Israel's West Bank barrier.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government had withheld data on civilian deaths amid spiralling sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunnis.

"UNAMI emphasises again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to operate in a transparent manner," the mission said in its latest report on human rights in Iraq.

U.N. officials said they were given no official reason why their requests for official data had been turned down.

"We were told that the government was becoming increasingly concerned about the figures being used to portray the situation as very grim," United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) human rights officer Ivana Vuco told a news conference.

Maliki, whose administration has accused UNAMI of exaggerating the death toll, later released a statement which rejected the mission's report as unbalanced.

"The Iraqi government announces its deep reservation on the report, which lacks accuracy in the information presented, lacks credibility in many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq," it said.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

In January, UNAMI said 34,452 Iraqi civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded in 2006, figures that were much higher than any statistics issued by the government.

On Wednesday it said Iraq faced "immense security challenges" and a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis". It expressed concern at the treatment of thousands of suspects detained under a major security crackdown in Baghdad, and about reports of collusion between Iraqi forces and some militias.

The report also said academics, journalists, doctors and members of religious and ethnic minorities were increasingly being killed, intimidated, or kidnapped by armed groups.

Iraqi officials say the civilian casualty toll has declined in the capital since the launch of the Baghdad security plan nine weeks ago. U.S. military commanders say a surge in car bombings, however, has pushed up the overall toll countrywide.

Percentages expressing broad increases or decreases for civilian deaths have replaced specific government figures.

Under the crackdown, U.S. and Iraqi troops are sweeping through Baghdad neighbourhoods, setting up checkpoints and combat outposts and walling off some flashpoint areas with concrete barriers.

But work began to alter a 5-km (3.5 mile) concrete wall around the Sunni enclave of Adhamiya after Maliki ordered a halt to construction at the weekend following sharp public outcry.

"We have sought other substitutes such as barbed wire, sand walls and small concrete barriers," said Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for the U.S.-backed security plan.

Both Bush and Maliki are under domestic pressure to show progress in the Baghdad crackdown after four years of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 3,300 U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. Congress will vote this week on a funding bill that sets March 31, 2008, as a goal for pulling out most troops but Bush has repeatedly threatened to use his presidential veto. (Additional reporting by Ross Colvin)

source: 25apr2007

UN: Iraqi Gov't Withheld Casualty Figures

THOMAS WAGNER / AP 25apr2007

The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Working with its own figures, the U.N. released a new human rights report Wednesday saying that sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in Sunni Arab and Shiite neighborhoods of Iraq's capital, despite the coalition's new Baghdad security plan. Begun Feb. 14, it has increased U.S. and Iraqi troops levels in the capital.

The Iraqi government quickly responded by calling the U.N. report "inaccurate" and "unbalanced."

The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said civilian casualties in the daily violence between Jan. 1 and March 31 remained high, concentrated in and around Baghdad.

The agency also expressed concern about the treatment of detainees under the U.S.-Iraqi operation to pacify the capital, saying that families and other people often were randomly taken into custody, with more than 3,000 people in detention by the end of March.

For the first time, UNAMI said, its assessment of the human rights situation in Iraq did not contain overall death figures from the Iraqi government because it refused to release them, omitting what many had viewed as a rare, reliable indicator of suffering in Iraq.

The Iraqi government announced in a statement its deep reservations about the report that is "inaccurate in presenting information" and that "lacks credibility in many of its points. Also, it lacks balance in presenting the situation of the human rights situation in Iraq."

"The publication of this unbalanced report ... puts the credibility of the U.N. office in Iraq on stake and it aggravates the humanitarian crisis in Iraq instead of solving it," the statement said.

U.N. human rights officer Ivana Vuco said the government did not officially given a reason for refusing to release the numbers but it apparently "was becoming increasingly concerned about the figures being used to portray the situation as very grim."

"Inofficially, however, in a number of follow up meetings to their decision we were told that there were concerns that the people would construe the figures to portray the situation negatively and that would further undermine their efforts to establish some kind of security and stability in the country," she said at a news conference at the mission's heavily fortified compound in Baghdad.

"We found the decision to be rather unfortunate because the figures were helping us ... to understand the scope of the problem," she said. "In our view it is the government's responsibility and they are probably the only one with the real capacity to gather the figures in a systematic manner."

Mission spokesman Said Arikat said the reason appeared to be that after the publication of its last human rights report on Jan. 16, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office told UNAMI its mortality figures were exaggerated, "but our figures were taken credibly they are probably among the most carefully screened figures."

He urged the government to reconsider its decision, saying the figures it could provide could "actually show what is going on in Iraq. Otherwise there will be a great deal of speculation."

Numbers for Iraqi civilians killed since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003 vary widely and are believed to be vastly underreported, in part because of political pressure.

The last U.N. report was issued in January found that 34,452 civilians were killed last year, including 6,376 in November and December, based on information from the Iraqi Health Ministry, hospitals across the country and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad. Iraqi officials have complained that the numbers were too high.

The current report cited many examples of deadly attacks by insurgents and militias across Iraq during Jan. 1-March 31, but it often relied on media accounts of such killings and does not provide overall numbers for the period.

On Feb. 14, U.S. troops began stepping up their presence in outposts and police stations in Baghdad and areas surrounding the city, as part of the security crackdown to which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers also are being deployed in the streets of the capital in an attempt to pacify it.

"While government officials claimed an initial drop in the number of killings in the latter half of February following the launch of the Baghdad security plan, the number of reported casualties rose again in March," the UNAMI study said.

Despite the government's announced decrease, the number of victims remained high, with up to 25 bodies still being found on some days during this period in Baghdad, the report said.

On March 1, it said, Iraq's Ministry of Interior announced that 1,646 civilians were killed in Iraq in February, most of them in Baghdad, but that "it is unclear on what basis these figures were compiled."

Despite the lack of government figures, UNAMI said the report still shows continued high levels of violence throughout the period, including large scale indiscriminate killings and assassinations by insurgents, militias and other armed groups.

"In February and March, sectarian violence claimed the lives of large numbers of civilians, including women and children, in both Shia and Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad," the report said.

It also was the first time the U.N. has issued a quarterly report, previously offering bimonthly assessments, in a bid to enable it to focus more on specific themes like child abuse and detention centers.

The latest report raised fears that arrested Iraqis were facing prolonged detentions while often facing insufficient evidence.

"The continuing failure to take decisive action in this regard can only serve to encourage the climate of impunity that prevails today, undermining the government's own efforts to restore law and order and ensure respect for the rule of law," the report said.