Iraq: Intensifying Crackdown
Iraq cracked down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating, and detaining activists, demonstrators, and journalists, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012. In February, Human Rights Watch uncovered a secret detention facility controlled by elite security forces who report to the military office of …
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Iraqi government purchase $75 million limousines
The Iraqi government has decided to spend nearly $75 million from the country’s oil revenues to purchase armored limousines, one for each of the 325 members of parliament. The government says the vehicles are needed because the parliamentarians are targets of attack by insurgents and 'terrorists.’The high salaries and perks senior Iraqi officials get ar…
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Electoral ruling riles Maliki's rivals
A ruling by the Iraqi high court calling for the country's electoral commission to come under the supervision of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Cabinet prompted rival parties Saturday to proclaim the move "a coup against democracy." The decision by the Supreme Court was posted Friday on its website. The ruling called for the Independent Hig…
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Iraq marks army's 90th anniversary
Iraq's army on Thursday marked the 90th anniversary of its 1921 founding with a huge military parade that included tanks and artillery weapons in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Commander-in-chief Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, standing on a small wooden platform at the foot of the imposing Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, took the salute as hun…
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Sadr tells followers to remain calm
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, back in Iraq after four years of Iran-based exile, urged his followers on Thursday to remain calm after they gave him a rowdy welcome in his home city of Najaf. Hundreds of people turned out to greet the radical cleric when he arrived on Wednesday in the central Iraq city, but they apparently became too exuberant when Sadr lat…
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Tariq Aziz imminent execution?
As the US and UK accuse Russia of a "politically motivated sentence" and the Pope accuses China of lack of freedom for Christians, former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, sits in Iraq awaiting execution. A Christian, victim of a politically motivated trial, he knows the truth of Western duplicity regarding Iraq. The silence …
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