“Corruption remains endemic, and its economic cost untold as it continues to steal desperately needed resources from the everyday Iraqi, eroding investor confidence,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert in her virtual address to the council.
The top UN representative to Iraq reports that poverty is trending upwards by over 10%, and that more than three million Iraqis cannot meet their food needs.
“Economic trouble is never far from humanitarian concerns. Iraq is expected to experience a 9.7% decline in GDP. Oil revenues, severely affected by a steep crash in oil prices, have nearly halved,” said Hennis-Plasschaert, demanding that the Iraqi political class allow for reforms to take hold.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was not spared from criticism in the SRSG’s address.
“In my briefing in May, I emphasized that, in the Kurdistan Region, as elsewhere in Iraq, transparency, fighting corruption, freedom of expression and fundamental reforms are of critical importance. I must repeat that message today,” she added.
Large protests have erupted in the Kurdistan Region in recent weeks, with demonstrators, predominantly in Sulaimani province, demanding their months-delayed civil sector pay from the government and denouncing a recently introduced wave of pay cuts to cope with the economic crisis gripping the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.
Iraq has been rocked by widespread protests since October 2019, with demonstrators demanding basic services, jobs, and the fall of the corruption-rife political establishment that have been in place since the 2003 US invasion. When security forces and pro-Iran militias began attacking the protesters, killing hundreds, activists began demanding an end to foreign interference in Iraqi affairs and called for the overthrow of the political elite.
Iraqi activists have been warning of an increasingly threatening environment for those who speak out against the country's current political order. Two prominent activists were assassinated in Basra in the space of one week. Reham Yacoub, a 29-year-old athletics coach and activist was shot dead on August 19, while activist Tahseen Oussama was killed on August 14.
“The silencing of peaceful voices-by exerting pressure on activists & media, by confusing the scene or even worse, by shedding blood-is an affront against basic rights & dignity,” added the SRSG on the uptick in the killings of activist and human rights advocates.
