Human Rights Watch: The KRG targets its critics

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticizes the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for breaching human rights and persecuting its opponents in its annual report on the state of human rights throughout the world.

The report on the state of human rights in the world for 2022 was released by HRW on Thursday.

In the study, the human rights situation in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region was condemned, as it was noted that "in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Kurdish authorities employed vaguely worded laws in 2022 to attack critics for expressing their thoughts and criticizing issues they opposed."

In addition, HRW stated: "In 2021, the Erbil Criminal Court sentenced three journalists and activists to six years in prison after finding them guilty in legal proceedings marked by serious fair trial violations and political interference—a pattern that has long existed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." 

The organization said that kidnappings, arrests, and torture were common in the governorates of Erbil and Duhok because of the demand for citizens' fundamental rights and their freedom of expression and political opinion. 

Furthermore, the report mentioned the most recent kidnapping of two Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) cadres, stating: "The most recent of these practices is the kidnapping of two advanced cadres of the PUK in the district of Dinarta, Duhok Governorate, by the KDP Asayish forces, as their lawyers are not allowed to visit them in detention, while one of the detainees suffers from a chronic heart disease."

HRW continued to state: "The PUK cadres have been kidnapped, arrested, and harassed by the KDP Asayish in Erbil and Duhok on several occasions under a variety of pretexts. These incidents have occurred often throughout the years, but since the KRG's ninth cabinet was formed, they have considerably escalated.
 


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