The Iraq Foundation
Human Rights Defenders Network
Newsletter - Issue 2
Baghdad, 25th May 2007
1. Introduction
Welcome to the third issue of our newsletter, covering our activities during the month of May. It includes reports, which shed light on the human rights situation in most Iraqi cities.
2. Activities
· The first report received by the Network was from Iraqi Human Rights Defenders Network in Kut entitled "Non-violence and Peaceful Resistance, a Choice for Political, Social, and Economic Change". The second Non-violence Week of 2007 took place from 29th April to 3rd May.
The office of the Ministry for Human Rights, the Wassit Governorate Council, political parties, religious foundations, civil society organizations, youth and sports associations, human rights activists, and the Baghdad and Nahreen channels participated in this activity in the hall of the Independent Democratic Assembly in Kut.
The event opened with a verse from the Noble Qur'an calling for the repudiation of violence, and an introduction to Non-violence Week and the Iraqi Non-violence Group, as well as a discussion of the effects of violence on the human being and our role and responsibility in putting a stop to it. An olive-growing project was launched, and all were invited to participate in the week's events.
This was the first day. On the second day, an olive-growing project was started at the People's Olympic Club, which specializes in boxing. Sports clubs and civil society organizations participated in the activities. It should be noted that this club was exposed to acts of vandalism from unknown groups.
On the third day a football match was organized in cooperation with the Wassit Sports Club, despite the acts of violence seen in this area (i.e., the area around the Wassit Sports Club). One of the television channels (Nahreen) covered this match.
This group also issued a report entitled "Reasons behind the injury of citizens by gunfire from unknown sources", prepared through field observation,
And with the assistance of hospitals and sources at the security forces.
· The Human Rights Institue in Balad drafted a report on the human rights situation in the Balad region. The report aimed to highlight the human rights situation through its observation of families who had fallen victim to forced displacement. This related to displaced families who had come to the Balad area in the Salah al-Din Governorate from various cities (Baghdad, Basra, Diyala). The report showed that the phenomenon of displaced families began a year before the bombings at the Mausoleum of the Two Imams in Samarra.
The report contained statistics gathered by the Organization for Human Rights in cooperation with the Iraqi Red Crescent, which indicated that there were 589 displaced families in Balad, coming from areas outside and inside the governorate (i.e. the Salah al-Din Governorate), as well as areas within the Balad region itself!
The report showed that families settled in Balad after migrating from Baghdad, and that the majority of families who migrated from Basra settled in the Dal'oiyah area. Meanwhile the families who came from Diyala settled in the Hatimiyah and Abu Hassan areas in the Yathrib area.
As for the families who had migrated within the Governorate, they came from Samarra and Tikrit, and settled in the Balad area. The area has seen the emigration of a number of families from the city of Baiji following the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Migrations have also taken place within the region itself, with the families concerned settling in the Aziz Balad, Dal'oiyah, Yathrib and al-Sahaqi areas. The circumstances of these families concern the loss of their homes, property, work and salary. These families have faced acts of violence from armed groups to whom a number of their sons have fallen victim; others have been kidnapped. The report indicates that the displaced families suffer from discrimination at the hands of the municipality when they apply for residency cards, and that the assistance offered to them is minimal.
The report contains interviews with some of the victims. One of the victims reported that his sister had been kidnapped and released in exchange for 30 thousand American dollars. The kidnappers had required them to leave the area within 12 hours. This occurred in the Miqdadiyah area (Hay Ashour) in Diyala Governorate.
The report also showed another victim who had owned a bakery in one of the areas of Baghdad. This baker was asked to leave Baghdad within 48 hours, but he did not obey, so they put an explosive charge in front of the oven. The victim left the city and their home without taking anything with them.
Among the recommendations which emerged from the report were calls for the Ministry of Displacement and Migrantion to open an office for the displaced in Balad, due to the lack of usefulness of the ministry's office in Tikrit, where the area is currently under siege by terrorist groups; calls for the municipality in the Balad region to allocate oil and gas shares to the displaced families; and calls for local and international civil society organizations working on humanitarian assistance to help these families.
The authors faced some difficulties in compiling this report, due to the fact that some of the more well off families did not register on the list of displaced families since could rent houses in the area. There is no statistics available on these families.
· The Future of Children Organisation in Diyala drafted a report entitled "Observation of the removal of checkpoints on external roads in all areas of the Diyala Governorate and the consequences on people's lives".
The report begins by discussing the operation of removing the checkpoints on the main roads in Diyala Governorate from the 1st to 5th May 2007, which led to armed groups gaining control over many areas in the Diyala Governorate served by the checkpoint of Imam Wais, which belonged to the Second Brigade, based in Kirkuk. This checkpoint covered the road between Khanaqin and Miqdadiyah, between Khanaqin and Mandali, in addition to the bridge between Mandali and Baladrooz, as well as the road linking Baladrooz and Ba'quba, and Baladrooz and Baghdad. The report looks into the reasons which led the multinational and Iraqi forces to take such measures, despite the fact that Diyala Governorate is a hot spot. The report goes on to say that the armed groups, following the removal of this checkpoint, began to kill people and shoot at them, as well as cut off the main roads. The work of public departments in Diyala was halted because of the deteriorating security situation and employees were unable to reach their offices due to the removal of these inspection points.
The sources used in the creation of the report were the Council of the Diyala Governorate, the first and second companies of the 5th division of the Iraqi Army, the Diyala Police Department, and the office of security information in Diyala. The working team faced difficulties caused by the dangerous security situation and the difficulty of movement in some areas, as well as the fact that the Allied forces did not supply information.
As for the positive aspects of the report, they note popular solidarity in the face of armed groups and the pressure of humanitarian groups in favor of returning the check points and offering humanitarian assistance to the victims. The team met the president of the Municipality of Baladrooz and questioned him on the issue of the removal of the checkpoints from the 1st to 5th May 2007. He responded, "As you know, Diyala Governorate is one of most violent regions, requiring a redoubling of security efforts. We were surprised when the controls (checkpoints) were removed".
On 7th May 2007 (as reported by the President of the Municipality), we received the news that 15 people from Baladrooz had been killed on the road from Baladrooz to Mandali. They were killed by unknown armed persons. The president of the municipality asked the government to reinforce the checkpoints and to increase the presence of the armed forces in the Governorate and on the external roads.
The team also interviewed one of the victims whom husband was killed on 7th May 2007 on the road. This woman, who had lost her husband, asked the government to provide answers for the removal of the checkpoints and increase the protection at the roads in order to protect families.
· The Human Rights Organisation in Mosul prepared a report on a training course on the principles of making prison visits and conducting interviews during the 5-6th May 2007. The participants represented various areas, and included representatives from the office of the Ministry of Human Rights in Mosul, the Happy Home Association, the Committee for Human Rights of the Muslim Scholars Agency in Mosul, the Human Rights Office of the Islamic Party in Mosul, and the Islamic Organization for Human Rights in Mosul. There were two main themes to the course, which were, firstly, the principles of visits to places of detention, and secondly, the principles of interviewing witnesses and rape victims. Each theme was allocated one whole day. Work on the first theme included looking at a number of principles related to detention and the treatment of detainees and general visits to detention facilities, as well as how to write a visit report. Work on the second theme focused on principles relating to the conduct of interviews and the rules that should be followed, as well as questions to be posed in the course of the interview. The course was completed using participatory group methods.
· From Kirkuk, the Al Haq (the truth) for Democracy and Rights Education sent a field mapping of women and children in prisons and street children. The report contained 40 different case studies. The results of the mapping showed that girls entered prison, or children were on the streets because 50% were led astray or committed a crime as a result of the bad economic situation, 25% as a result of domestic circumstances and the social situation and 25% as a result of unemployment and the lack of opportunities presented to them to be sheltered or properly educated. The report provides some details. The team met a detainee born in 1988 convicted of manslaughter. He had been selling cigarettes and was part of a family of eleven. In this family, each person had a different employment. However, the prisoner had, according to the report, been playing around with his friend's revolver, which led to his killing a person by mistake. The team also met a beggar. In an interview with her, it was discovered that she had been working as a janitor at the Azadi hospital. She was fired after she loss her ability to see. She had a sick child and nobody to meet her needs, which turned her into a beggar. The areas included in the mapping were Tafsirat Prison in Kirkuk, popular markets, Atlas Street, the Martyrs' Bridge, and Ahmad Agha.
· The Kurdish Center for Youth Baghdad prepared a report on the desperate situation experienced by families living on Kifah Street in Baghdad (Rusafah), as a result of the absence of government forces. This area has been targeted more than once by armed groups. The report also showed that unemployment is spreading among residents.
· The Human Rights Organization in al-Samawa sent us a report which complements and follows up on their previous reports on prisons in the city of al-Samawa and international standards that must be applied.
· The Society of Education for All in Baghdad prepared a report on the situation of services and education in the Tariq neighborhood (behind the earth dam of Thawra City), also known as the al-Tank neighborhood. The report begins by saying that despite many reports about the situation in the area, the team from the organization found that the situation had deteriorated in comparison to the first visit conducted by the organization on the 16th February 2006. The second visit was in February 2007, and the third in April 2007. The team found that the situation had deteriorated to the extent that lives were directly threatened. In the neighborhood there was only one school, which had sunk one meter below street level, making it permanently exposed to flooding when rain and sewage water gathered in it. In the building there are two schools, Barir Ben Khadir Primary School and Zahoor Primary School for Girls. Their 500 pupils are spread among only ten rooms, with 5 rooms for the first primary class and the others allocated for the second primary class. The only grade levels of schooling available at this school are the first and second grade. This school receives pupils living on the right side of the neighborhood. Those living on the left side must travel three kilometers to Thawra City. One of the parents interviewed by the team stated that he had two children aged 6 and 7 years and he could not send them to Thawra City to go to school there as he was afraid for their security, yet the school in the neighborhood did not accept children from the left side. "What should I do?"
The Headmistress of Zahoor School stated that they needed at least five primary schools with the six levels in order to cater for the 5000 children of primary age in the area.
It should be noted that, according to the report, at the beginning of February 2007 the Ministry of Education destroyed the old school building and began to build a new one with two floors in order to hold six classes. However, this work is taking place while no alternative building is available to temporarily shelter the students. This led most students to leave from the Barir Ben Khadir Primary School and Zahoor Primary School for Girls. On the other hand, the completion of the new building will no solve the problem.