Iraq Authorities Acknowledge Horrific Prison Overcrowding
Several members of Iraq’s parliament and the province’s deputy governor visited prisons near Mosul, Iraq, calling what they found a “humanitarian catastrophe.” This happened two days after Human Rights Watch released research detailing the horrible conditions of the prisons, which hold terrorism suspects. Immediately after our report release, local authorities claimed Human Rights Watch’s research was […]Several members of Iraq’s parliament and the province’s deputy governor visited prisons near Mosul, Iraq, calling what they found a “humanitarian catastrophe.” This happened two days after Human Rights Watch released research detailing the horrible conditions of the prisons, which hold terrorism suspects.
Immediately after our report release, local authorities claimed Human Rights Watch’s research was “fallacious.” But the government’s tone has since changed. One parliamentarian admitted that “what Human Rights Watch reported was small relative to the actual catastrophe inside the prisons of Nineveh.”
The public acknowledgement of the prisons’ horrendous conditions is a positive first step. Human Rights Watch is advocating with Iraq authorities to ensure everyone in pretrial detention a speedy and fair trial or release. Detention before trial should be the exception, not the rule. We are also pushing for detainees to be transferred to official prisons that are accessible to visitors, including government inspectors, independent monitors, relatives, and lawyers.
