Iraq’s Sudani Refers Officials Involved in Human Rights Violations to Judiciary

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani. (AP)
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani. (AP)
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Iraq’s Sudani Refers Officials Involved in Human Rights Violations to Judiciary

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani. (AP)
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani. (AP)

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani announced on Saturday that officials, including military officers, have been referred to the judiciary for committing serious human rights violations.   

Although a government statement did not name the officials, media reports said Sudani was referring to the Permanent Committee to Investigate Corruption and Significant Crimes, better known as Committee 29.   

Led by Ahmed Abu Ragheef, a senior intelligence and investigations officer in the Ministry of Interior, Committee 29 was formed at the directive of former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in August 2020 to investigative major corruption cases.   

Sudani stressed that Iraq’s constitution bans all forms of physical and psychological torture and inhumane treatment and hailed the citizens who filed complaints.  

According to the statement, Sudani’s government appointed a human rights advisor directly after assuming its constitutional duties in mid-October. It established a mechanism to receive complaints and take appropriate actions in this regard. 

The statement further revealed that 3,000 complaints were submitted, adding that many spoke of legal violations committed by public servants and officials, which are seen as serious violations of human rights. 

The complaints and allegations have been referred to the Public Prosecution and will be later sent to the Human Rights Investigation Court. 

Also, through follow-up, a number of the accused, including an investigative officer, were referred to the relevant courts for trial. 

The developments were in response to a nine-month investigation by The Washington Post, which concluded on Wednesday that Committee 29 had used extreme methods of torture, including sexual violence, to extract pre-written confessions from former Iraqi officials and businessmen. 

Sudani on Thursday said any party that used and extracted confessions by force would be held to account. 

In more than two dozen interviews, including five men detained by the committee, nine family members who had relatives imprisoned, and 11 Iraqi and Western officials who tracked the committee’s work, the Post revealed a process marked by abuse and humiliation, more focused on obtaining signatures for pre-written confessions than on accountability for corrupt acts.   

It quoted a former detainee as saying that the means of torture included electric shocks and choking with plastic bags. 



Cyprus Says Syria Will Take Back Citizens Trying to Reach the Mediterranean Island by Boat

Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
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Cyprus Says Syria Will Take Back Citizens Trying to Reach the Mediterranean Island by Boat

Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP)

Syria has agreed to take back any of its citizens intercepted trying to reach Cyprus by boat, the Mediterranean island nation's deputy minister for migration said Monday.

Nicholas Ioannides says two inflatable boats, each carrying 30 Syrians, were already turned back in recent days in line with a bilateral search and rescue agreement that Cyprus and Syria now have in place.

Officials didn't share further details about the agreement.

Cypriot navy and police patrol boats intercepted the two vessels on May 9th and 10th after they put out a call for help. They were outside Cypriot territorial waters but within the island's search and rescue area of responsibility, a government statement said. They were subsequently escorted back to a port in the Syrian city of Tartus.

Ioannides told private TV station Antenna there’s been an uptick of boatloads of migrants trying to reach Cyprus from Syria, unlike in recent years when vessels would primarily depart from Lebanon. Cyprus and Lebanon have a long-standing agreement to send back migrants.

He said Cypriot authorities and their Syrian counterparts are trying to fight back against human traffickers who are supplying an underground market for laborers.

According to Ioannides, traffickers apparently cut deals with local employers to bring in Syrian laborers who pick up work right away, despite laws that prevent asylum-seekers from working before the completion of a nine-month residency period.

“The message we’re sending is that the Cyprus Republic won’t tolerate the abuse of the asylum system from people who aren’t eligible for either asylum or international protection and just come here only to work,” Ioannides said.

The bilateral agreement is compounded by the Cypriot government’s decision last week not to automatically grant asylum to Syrian migrants, but to examine their applications individually on merit and according to international and European laws.

From a total of 19,000 pending asylum applications, 13,000 have been filed by Syrian nationals, according to figures quoted by Ioannides.

Since Assad was toppled in December last year and a new transitional government took power, some 2,300 Syrians have either dropped their asylum claims or rescinded their international protection status, while 2,100 have already departed Cyprus for Syria.

Both the United Nations refugee agency and Europe’s top human rights body have urged the Cyprus government to stop pushing back migrants trying to reach the island by boat. Cyprus strongly denies it’s committing any pushbacks according to its definition.