Human rights advocates are mostly opposed to capital punishment. Except in Iraq, where the Ministry of Human Rights thinks it’s OK if there’s a fair trial. And their attitude reflects that of many Iraqis, who see it as a fitting punishment for terrorists.
According to Human Rights Watch, a New York based monitoring organization, “since the beginning of 2012, Iraq has executed at least 65 prisoners, 51 of them in January, and 14 more on February 8, for various offences”.
In their annual report, another human rights group, Amnesty International, noted a surge in executions in the Middle East region in 2011, with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq the main culprits.
However it seems that abolishing the death penalty in a country like Iraq is more difficult than one might first assume. The Iraqi government supports capital punishment and so it seems, do most of the public. Unlike in countries like the US where there are surveys on the contentious issue – a 2011 poll found that around 60 percent of Americans favoured it in murder cases - capital punishment is not a heavily debated subject in Iraq.
Under Saddam Hussein, over one hundred different crimes were potentially punishable by death. After Hussein’s government was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003, the first interim government established by the Americans suspended capital punishment.
However little more than a year later capital punishment was re-introduced albeit for a smaller set of mostly violent crimes. Some felt that the decision to bring back the death penalty was motivated, in part, by a general desire to inflict that punishment on the former leader, Hussein, who would go on trial shortly.
The Iraqi government justifies the executions by arguing that only the death penalty can deter terrorist acts. And somewhat unusually, this sentiment is iterated by the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights. According to a Ministry spokesperson, Kamil Amin, death by hanging is suitable as long as there has been a fair trial.
The Iraqi government justifies the executions by arguing that only the death penalty can deter terrorist acts. And somewhat unusually, this sentiment is iterated by the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights. According to a Ministry spokesperson, Kamil Amin, death by hanging is suitable as long as there has been a fair trial.
Source: niqash, April 12, 2012
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