Video of parading protesters raises ‘serious concerns’ about KRG’s approach to judicial process: HRW

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The New York-based rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday that fresh footage depicting detained protesters without being convicted of any crime flies in the face of the presumption of innocence and raises “serious concerns” about the treatment of protesters by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as their approach to justice.

The KRG’s internal security forces (Asayish) in Sulaimani released a six-minute video this week parading 18 young handcuffed protesters, their faces hidden, wearing bright orange jumpsuits reminiscent of hostages of the Islamic State (ISIS). The footage shows the men allegedly confessing to destroying and damaging public property during the widespread anti-KRG demonstrations in the Region late last year.

“It is shocking that the KRG would display footage like this as it flies in the face of the presumption of innocence and the need for the judicial process to be independent and respected by authorities and the public,” Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch said in a statement sent to Rudaw English on Thursday. “These video clips raise serious concerns about the KRG’s treatment of a group of young men, who, as far as we know, have yet to be convicted of any crime.”

The protest was started by university students in the Region’s city of Sulaimani, angry at the government for not reinstating a meagre allowance that had been cut for over seven years. Students were joined by other dissatisfied members of the public, and demonstrations spread across the Region as far as Duhok and Erbil. Forty kilometers north of the city of Sulaimani, a number of government buildings including a library were set on fire in the town of Piramagrun, reportedly by protesters.

In response, riot police deployed tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against the students and the protesters. In one shocking video, a member of the security forces was seen severely kicking a protester in the head while on the ground. The attacker was reportedly detained.

In an unprecedented move, Bafel Talabani, the co-chair of the province’s ruling party in Sulaimani, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), called the violence used by the security forces “unjust,” and apologised to the protesters and students. “I am deeply saddened by the unjust violence that has been executed against a number of students. I sincerely ask for pardon from my sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers who walk towards a glimmering future with hope,” a statement from Talabani read on November 30, who pledged to make “immense changes” and “work closer with the youth and students.”

Recent footage from Sulaimani’s security forces takes a different approach.

The video begins with the message, “These accused had a hand in changing the direction of the peaceful protest of the residents of Piramagrun, they were detained by the Asayish forces from Sulaimani instructed by the Asayish investigative judge,” proceeding to explain that the accused have confessed to their crimes, and an investigation is ongoing.

The footage attempts to justify the men’s detention under Article 342 of the Iraqi penal code, which states that “any person who willfully sets on fire moveable or immoveable property even though he is the owner of such property is punishable by a term of imprisonment not exceeding 5 years if he thereby endangers the life or property of others.”

“We blocked the road and as our numbers increased, we went to the library and then we burnt the library,” a young man with curly hair, whose face has been blurred, told an interrogator. Asked how the library was burnt, the young man responds to his questioner, “with paper and a lighter.” The interrogator, speaking from behind the camera and not in the frame, pushes the young man to provide the names of the others who were with him. The protester scratches his head, and adds that they burnt a Nissan vehicle in the yard. When asked who did this, later, another replies that, “the vehicle was burnt by two children.”

Another protester who says in the video that he was born in 2003 and is a construction worker, is pushed to give the names of those with him. He appears to refuse, and says only that they used the fire from an oil stove to set the library alight, face blurred, fearfully responding to an interrogating voice in the video.

The last interviewee, also a construction worker born in 2003, responds to his intimidating interrogator as he is asked about the people who attacked KRG buildings in Piramagrun. “They were throwing away the chairs and throwing stones at the window and I was standing on the opposite side near the garden, then when they burnt it, I also joined them,” the young protester says. 

The video cuts to the 18 young men, handcuffed in orange jumpsuits, lined up in two rows. A CCTV camera can be spotted, located in the corner of the white room.

The interrogator asks who burnt the office of the traffic police and the PUK’s Sulaimani office. The three young protesters provide contradictory answers in the second part of the interview. One says the traffic office was not burnt down, and another says one room was set on fire. 

"Are you repentant about what you did?" the interrogator asks, to which the response is “Yes.” 

A young protester pauses and, after a few seconds, says the following without being prompted. “I am saying this stuff of my own free will and without being pressured or forced,” the curly-haired man says in a hesitant voice. Another adds that he, too, is making the statement of his own free will and “without being beaten.” The last protester repeats the same thing, that he “was not subject to violence and I am saying this of my own free will.” The video ends and fades into the Asayish logo.

This is not the first time the Asayish’s conduct has come under scrutiny. International human rights organisations and the US State Department have repeatedly criticised the KRG’s internal security forces for "physical abuse", "punishment" and even the "torture" of detainees under its care.

The State Department said in its report last year that Iraqi security forces including the Asayish were involved in  “numerous reports of arbitrary arrest or unlawful detention.” The report went as far as stating that, “impunity effectively existed for government officials and security force personnel” across Iraq including “certain units of Kurdistan Regional Government Asayish internal security services.”

Last month, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a critical report on the state of human rights, freedom of expression, and trials in the Kurdistan Region.

The report accused the Asayish of extracting "confessions under coercion," in the case of detainees from Duhok province and, while acknowledged the progress made by the KRG in relation to the rule of law, judicial independence and human rights, it called on the KRG to "ensure that any person charged with a criminal offence is afforded all fair trial rights and procedural guarantees." 

It also implored the KRG to guarantee “that all suspects and accused effectively benefit from the presumption of innocence, without discrimination, and that the burden of proving a criminal offence remains throughout upon the prosecutorial authority as required under relevant international human rights norms and national standards."

“Their appearance in a mass confession video in orange jumpsuits calls into question whether they consented, or even could have, to confessing on screen. Have they had access to lawyers? Were their confessions forced?” Wille told Rudaw English. “Treatment of detainees and prisoners by a government that promotes this kind of material is a real concern.”