Al-Jazeera, 11 December 2012 – The Iraq’s London-based Human Rights Watch Organization called on the Iraqi Government to the halt execution of a Libyan national and called for the initiation of a valid investigation regarding the dozens of executions carried out in the current year in Iraq. Currently there are over 600 detainees on death row. There is information that the Prime Minister has confirmed their verdicts.
“Take the noose out of this chief (Maliki’s) hand”, this is the cry of Iraqis and human rights organizations who say that Iraqi was once the land of hanging gardens, yet is now the land of hanging ropes. Iraq is quickly running through the path of becoming one of the world’s countries with the most executions. In the most corrupt list, no country matches it. It is the first Arab country that based on the UN stats, 60 thousand widows manage their family. This year Nouri al-Maliki sent over 100 people to the gallows on terrorism charges. Some 1000 are awaiting execution. These include women, Arab nationals from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Libya and …

The UN has called of a halt in execution in Iraq many times describing its judicial system as lacking transparency. An inmate by the name of Abu Seraj from the Kadhimiya Prison in Baghdad says: “We have been detained and condemned to execution by the Iraqi Government based on false allegations and we are deprived of our most basic rights and our lawyers aren’t allowed to come and see us in prison”.

Director of the National Center for Justice Dr. Mohamed al-Sheikhli: “Without a doubt Iraq’s judiciary is suffering from political intervention, and we witness many of these cases. Maliki has influence over judicial verdicts. As a result, Iraq’s judiciary has lost its independency. We believe that the death penalty is a barbaric and inhumane punishment that is inconsistent with the new era. Unfortunately, we had counted on the UN Representative in Iraq, yet we witnessed how Martin Kobler announced yesterday that the UN agenda is the same as al-Maliki’s agenda, therefore the UN representation has lost its credibility and support over the issue of human rights in Iraq.”