The government of Iraq’s systematic execution of prisoners sentenced to death based on confessions gained through torture – and pursuant to an ambiguous counterterrorism law – amount to arbitrary deprivation of life under international law and may amount to a crime against humanity, a group of UN special rapporteurs on human rights said in a statement released on Thursday, June 27.
“We are alarmed by the high number of executions publicly reported since 2016 – nearly 400, including 30 this year – and the explicit political commitment to continue implementing death sentences, in total disregard to the reported irregularities in the administration of justice, cases of enforced disappearances, and torture-tainted confessions, which led to these unfair sentences,” the special rapporteurs said.
The UN experts said there are a total of 8,000 prisoners on death row in Iraq.
“We insist that most of the crimes detailed in articles (2) and (3) of the Counterterrorism Law No. 13 of 2005 and based on which persons are being sentenced to death, fail to meet the threshold of the ‘most serious crimes,’ rendering these executions arbitrary in nature,” the experts said. “The alleged political use of death sentences, mainly against Sunni Iraqi males, is deeply troubling.”
Not only are death row prisoners subjected to severe psychological suffering due to the lack of information about the date of execution, but they are also reportedly tortured and suffer other forms of ill-treatment in the notorious Nasiriyah Prison, including lack of access to adequate food and clean drinking water. They are also denied medical care for serious and infectious diseases, leading to premature deaths in custody.
“We are horrified by the scores of reported deaths in Nasiriyah Prison due to torture and deplorable conditions of detention,” the experts said. “We remind the government of Iraq of its responsibility for prisoners’ deaths, under international law, until such responsibility is refuted, through a thorough and impartial investigation, in compliance with relevant international standards, manifested in the 2016 Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death.”
The UN special rapporteurs again urged the government of Iraq to immediately halt all executions, ensure a fair retrial for prisoners on death row – particularly those accused of terrorism-related offences – and promptly initiate thorough and impartial investigations into all allegations of enforced disappearances, torture, and ill-treatment, in accordance with international standards. Additionally, the results of such investigations must be publicly available.
On April 24, Amnesty International in a report called on the Iraqi authorities to immediately halt all executions, after at least 13 men were put to death on April 22 at Nasiriyah Prison.
“Executions carried out after trials that don’t meet international human rights standards may amount to arbitrary deprivation of life,” said Amnesty International’s Iraq Researcher Razaw Salihy. “The government of Iraq must immediately establish an official moratorium on executions and work toward abolishing the death penalty entirely.”
