taken on September 5, 2018, Palestinian school children raise the
victory gesture over a UN flag during a protest at a United Nations
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school. (Photo by HAZEM BADER /
AFP)
UN human rights experts on Friday voiced alarm at
reports that a further 50 terror convicts were facing execution in
Iraq on Monday, as they urged Baghdad to halt all “mass
executions”.
Some 4,000 prisoners, most of them charged with terror-related
offences, are reportedly on death row in Iraq, said a trio of
experts who do not speak for the United Nations but report their
findings to it.
Hundreds of deaths are imminent after the signing of execution
orders, according to the UN special rapporteurs Nils Melzer
(torture and other cruel punishment), Fionnuala Ni Aolain
(protecting human rights while countering terrorism) and Agnes
Callamard (extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions).
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Iraq executed 21 men convicted of “terrorism” last Monday at the
notorious Nasiriyah prison in the country’s south, medical and
police sources said.
They had all been convicted under a 2005 anti-terrorism law,
which carries the death penalty.
Since declaring the Islamic State group defeated in late 2017,
Iraq has condemned hundreds of its own citizens to death for
membership of the jihadist faction.
The UN experts said in a joint statement that they had “serious
concerns about the conduct of the trials and the extraction of
confessions under torture”.
“We strongly urge the Iraqi government to respect its
international legal obligations and to immediately halt further
plans to execute prisoners,” said the special rapporteurs.
“When carried out on a widespread and systematic basis,
arbitrary executions may well amount to crimes against humanity and
may entail universal criminal responsibility for any official
involved in such acts.”
AFP
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/11/21/un-experts-seek-end-to-mass-executions-in-iraq/