Head of the KRG committee to evaluate and respond to international reports Dindar Zebari told Rudaw on Saturday that his office will respond to the findings in the US report in more detail, but he criticized the report for what he described as its lack of independent investigations into alleged violations in the Kurdistan Region.
“The charges related to torture and the condition of detainees in Kurdish prisons are in fact repetitions. The US State Department account is a repetition of earlier reports conducted by other groups such as the Human Rights Group and the Amnesty International and many other reports that have been published in the Kurdistan Region. Nothing is new about it,” Zebari said.
“With regard to torture, our laws are clear. No charges have so far been reported. No one has filed a charge against a prison or a related office in order for us to take legal action. But it is true that there have been some cases which have been addressed and reprimanded… The UNAMI and the Red Cross have their offices here. Kurdish prisons are open. If the reports are based on the statements of the detainees then it’s something, but has the US State Department verified the reported claims? In what ways has the US State department conducted its own first hand investigation,” he added.
In a 65-page long report, the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, charges the KRG and its security apparatus Asayesh of serious violations of human rights, including unlawful detentions, torture of terror suspects, crackdown on freedom of speech, and violence against journalists.
The report says, “abusive interrogation under certain conditions reportedly occurred in some detention facilities of the KRG’s internal security unit, the Asayish, and the intelligence services of the major political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) Parastin and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Zanyari. During monitoring visits to IKR [Iraq-Kurdistan Region] prisons and places of detention between January 2015 and June 2016, UNAMI reported 70 detainees had raised allegations of torture or other ill treatment during the interrogation phase, or both.”
“The KRG operated secret detention facilities during the year, according to international observers and to the head of the KRG parliamentary Human Rights Committee,” according to the report.
Zebari said the report had failed to mention the actions taken by the KRG to address the previous cases and the fact that much of the reported incidents took place in areas with large influx of refugees and displaced persons.
“We want to say that there are no mentions of the steps taken by the KRG. Even in the case of alleged torture, we do have coordination with the UN and visit detention centers regularly. The report fails to mention what the KRG has been doing to address the issues.
“When it comes to the right of freedom of speech, our laws are clear. We have over 7,000 journalists in Kurdistan. We have dozens of TV stations in the country… Journalists and media outlets are free to cover the news about the government and have access to information,” Zebari said.
The U.S. State Department released its annual report on human rights around the world on Friday but the release was overshadowed by criticism that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave the report little of the traditional attention or fanfare.
