Iraqi Presidency to Asharq Al-Awsat: More Than 7,000 Prisoners Released in a Year

The Minister of Justice speaks to an Iraqi prisoner in a prison in Baghdad in early March. (government media)
The Minister of Justice speaks to an Iraqi prisoner in a prison in Baghdad in early March. (government media)
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Iraqi Presidency to Asharq Al-Awsat: More Than 7,000 Prisoners Released in a Year

The Minister of Justice speaks to an Iraqi prisoner in a prison in Baghdad in early March. (government media)
The Minister of Justice speaks to an Iraqi prisoner in a prison in Baghdad in early March. (government media)

A senior official in the Iraqi presidential office said on Thursday that President Abdul Latif Rashid “contributed to the release of 7,894 prisoners and detainees within one year.”
In October 2022, the Iraqi president launched an initiative to address the issue of the delayed release of prisoners, in cooperation with the Ministries of Justice and Interior, the National Security Advisory, and the Judicial Supervision Service.
According to official information, the initiative has established an “electronic system” to facilitate the exchange of information between various institutions and departments, to follow up on the files of convicts before their release date to verify that they are not wanted in other cases.
The head of the Advisory Board of the Presidency of the Republic, Ali Al-Shukri, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The electronic mechanism accelerated the release of 7,894 prisoners and detainees within one year, in the first step of its kind at the level of the Presidency of the Republic since 2003.”
Last week, Rashid discussed the conditions of prisoners and detainees in Iraq with Sarah Sanbar, responsible for the Iraq file at Human Rights Watch, and stressed that his country “is committed to the standards of implementing human rights, especially in prisons, improving the conditions of detainees and inmates, and providing legal and administrative procedures to resolve their situation.”
He added that the presidency was working closely with the Ministry of Justice and the relevant security authorities in order to expedite legal mechanisms.
Human Rights Watch had strongly criticized the Iraqi authorities in 2019, as a result of the “severe overcrowding in prisons and the degrading conditions of prisoners.”
For many years, prison inmates in Iraq have been suffering from delayed release after the completion of their sentences, due to administrative procedures, which continue to lead to severe overcrowding in jails and detention centers.
An official source in the Iraqi Ministry of Justice acknowledged the delay in the release of prisoners for various reasons, as well as the overcrowding in the majority of prisons.
The source told Asharq Al-Awsat: “About 64,000 prisoners, excluding those detained in the prisons and parking lots of the Ministry of Interior, have been sentenced in various cases ranging from terrorism, drugs, and other crimes,” noting that the existing 14 prisons could not accommodate this number.
The source expected that overcrowding in prisons would be addressed by the end of 2025, if the construction of new buildings in different regions across the country is completed.

 

 



Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Israeli forces bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people in one of the buildings in the town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said on Monday.

Several others were wounded in the attack and others were missing after a house providing shelter to displaced people was struck, with rescue workers unable immediately to reach them, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the number of wounded, they added.

Clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in Jabalia and in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, where the Israeli army has been operating for several weeks, residents said.

They said Israeli drones had dropped bombs outside a school sheltering displaced families, suggesting this was intended to scare them into leaving.

The Palestinians say Israel's army is trying to clear people out of the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The Israeli army denies this.

The Israeli military, which began its offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the group's attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, has said its latest operations in northern Gaza are meant to prevent militants regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,400 people and displaced most of the population, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the enclave lie in ruins.

About 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack on the October 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH

Israel agreed a ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah last week, but the conflict in Gaza has continued.

Officials in Cairo have hosted talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah group led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the possible establishment of a committee to run post-war Gaza.

Egypt has proposed that a committee made up of non-partisan technocrat figures, and supervised by Abbas's authority, should be ready to run Gaza straight after the war ends. Israel has said Hamas should have no role in governance.

An official close to the talks said progress had been made but no final deal had been reached. Israel's approval would be decisive in determining whether the committee could fulfill its role. Egyptian security officials have also held talks with Hamas on ways to reach a ceasefire with Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters Hamas stood by its condition that any agreement must bring an end to the war and involve an Israeli troop withdrawal out, but would show the flexibility needed to achieve that.

Israel has said the war will end only when Hamas no longer governs Gaza and poses no threat to Israelis.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday there was some indication of progress towards a hostage deal but that Israel's conditions for ending the war had not changed.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said he thought the chances of a ceasefire and hostage deal were now more likely.