Amnesty urges Kurdistan RegionG to rein in forces

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: Amnesty International has called on the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) to rein in its forces, which it said were “operating outside the rule of law.” “The Kurdistan region has been spared the bloodletting and violence that continues to wrack the rest of Iraq and the Kurdistan RegionG (Kurdistan Regional Government) has made some important human rights advances,” a report received by IraqiNews.com news agency quoted Malcolm Smart, the director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, as saying. “Yet real problems — arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women — remain and need urgently to be addressed by the government,” Smart explained. The report, based on investigations conducted in 2008, praised the regional government for releasing hundreds of detainees, many of whom it said had been held without charge for years. “The Kurdistan RegionG must take concrete steps to rein in these forces and make them fully accountable under the law if recent human rights gains are to prove effective,” Smart added. “No effort should be spared to prosecute and imprison those who commit violence against women, and to make clear that those who perpetrate these crimes cannot escape justice,” Smart noted. No comment was immediately available from the region’s Ministry of Interior or Asayish (Kurdish security forces) officials. SS (S) 1