d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention and provide for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. Despite such protections, there were numerous reports of arbitrary arrests and detentions, predominantly of Sunni Arabs, including IDPs.
ROLE OF THE POLICE AND SECURITY APPARATUS
Numerous domestic security forces operated throughout the country. The regular armed forces and domestic law enforcement bodies maintained order within the country. The PMF, a state-sponsored umbrella military organization composed of approximately 60 militia groups, operated throughout the country. Some PMF groups, however, such as AAH and KH, often appeared to operate independently from Iraqi authorities and answer to Iranian authorities. They sometimes undertook operations independent of political leaders or military commanders and discounted the authority of commanders during sanctioned operations. Most PMF units were Shia Arab, reflecting the demographics of the country. Shia Arab militia operated across the country, while Sunni Arab, Yezidi, Christian, and other minority PMF units generally operated within or near their home regions. The Peshmerga, including militias of the KDP and PUK, maintained order in the IKR.
The ISF consists of security forces administratively organized within the Ministries of Interior and Defense, the PMF, and the Counterterrorism Service. The Ministry of Interior is responsible for domestic law enforcement and maintenance of order; it oversees the Federal Police, Provincial Police, Facilities Protection Service, Civil Defense, and Department of Border Enforcement. Energy police, under the Ministry of Oil, are responsible for providing infrastructure protection. Conventional military forces under the Ministry of Defense are responsible for the defense of the country but also carry out counterterrorism and internal security operations in conjunction with the Ministry of Interior. The Counterterrorism Service reports directly to the prime minister and oversees the Counterterrorism Command, an organization that includes three brigades of special operations forces. The NSS intelligence agency also reports directly to the prime minister.
In March the prime minister issued a decree formalizing inclusion of the PMF in the security forces, granting them equivalent salaries and subjecting them to military service laws. While limited by law to operations in the country, in some cases units reportedly supported the Assad regime in Syria, acting independently of the Iraqi government’s authority. The government did not recognize these fighters as PMF even if their organizations were part of the PMF. All PMF units officially report to the national security advisor and are under the authority of the prime minister, but several units in practice were also responsive to Iran and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The prime minister, national security advisor, and ISF did not demonstrate consistent command and control over all PMF activities, particularly units aligned with Iran. Actions by disparate PMF units exacerbated security challenges and sectarian tensions, especially in diverse areas of the country such as Ninewa and Kirkuk Governorates.
The two main Kurdish political parties, the KDP and the PUK, each maintained an independent security apparatus. Under the federal constitution, the KRG has the right to maintain internal security forces, but the PUK and KDP separately controlled additional Peshmerga units. The KDP and PUK likewise maintained separate Asayish internal security services and separate intelligence services, nominally under the KRG Ministry of Interior.
KRG forces detained suspects in areas the regional government controlled. Poorly defined administrative boundaries and disputed territories between the IKR and the rest of the country led to confusion over the jurisdiction of security forces and the courts.
Government forces made limited efforts to prevent or respond to societal violence, including ethnosectarian violence that continued to flare in Kirkuk and Ninewa Governorates during the year.
Civilian authorities did not maintain effective control over some elements of the security forces, particularly certain Iran-aligned PMF units. Impunity was a problem. There were reports of torture and abuse throughout the country in facilities used by the Ministries of Interior and Defense, as well as PMF groups and the NSS. According to international human rights organizations, abuse took place primarily during detainee interrogations while in pretrial detention. Other problems persisted, including corruption, within the country’s provincial police forces. The military and Federal Police recruited and deployed soldiers and police officers on a nationwide basis, leading to complaints from local communities that members of the army and police were abusive because of ethnosectarian differences.
Investigators in the Ministry of Interior’s office of the inspector general were responsible for conducting investigations into human rights abuses by security forces, with a preliminary report due within 30 days. The minister of interior or the prime minister can also order investigations into high-profile allegations of human rights abuses, as occurred following reports of ISF abuses during September protests in Basrah. The government rarely made the results of investigations public or punished those responsible for human rights abuses.
The IHRCKR routinely notified the Kurdistan Ministry of Interior when it received credible reports of police human rights violations. The KRG High Committee to Evaluate and Respond to International Reports reviewed charges of Peshmerga abuses, largely against IDPs, and exculpated them in public reports, but human rights organizations questioned the credibility of those investigations.
ARREST PROCEDURES AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES
The law prohibits the arrest or remand of individuals, except by order of a competent judge or court or as established by the code of criminal procedures. The law requires authorities to register the detainee’s name, place of detention, reason for detention, and legal basis for detention within 24 hours of the detention–a period that may be extended to a maximum of 72 hours in most cases. For offenses punishable by death, authorities may legally detain the defendant as long as necessary to complete the judicial process. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for updating and managing these registers. The law requires the Ministries of Defense and Interior and the NSS to establish guidelines for commanders in battlefield situations to register detainees’ details in this central register. The law also prohibits any entity, other than legally competent authorities, to detain any person.
Human rights organizations reported that government forces, including the ISF, Federal Police, NSS, PMF, Peshmerga, and Asayish, frequently ignored the law. Local media and human rights groups reported that authorities arrested suspects in security sweeps without warrants, particularly under the antiterrorism law, and frequently held such detainees for prolonged periods without charge or registration. The government periodically released detainees, usually after concluding that it lacked sufficient evidence for the courts to convict them, but many others remained in detention pending review of other outstanding charges. In July HRW reported that the NSS admitted detaining more than 400 individuals (many arbitrarily or unlawfully) for prolonged periods up to two years, despite not having a legal mandate to do so (see section 1.c.).
According to NGOs, detainees and prisoners whom the judiciary ordered released sometimes faced delays from the Ministry of Interior or other ministries to clear their record of other pending charges and release them from prison.
The law allows release on bond for criminal (but not security) detainees. Authorities rarely released detainees on bail. The law provides for judges to appoint paid counsel for the indigent. Attorneys appointed to represent detainees frequently complained that insufficient access to their clients hampered adequate attorney-client consultation. In many cases, detainees were not able to meet their attorneys until their scheduled trial date. There were numerous reports that defendants did not have access to legal representation during the investigation phase, appointed lawyers lacked sufficient time to prepare a defense, and that courts failed to investigate claims of torture while in detention.
In a July report, private defense attorneys told HRW that in terrorism cases they never seek permission to represent their clients at the initial investigative hearing out of concern that security forces and judges at the investigative court would label them “ISIS lawyers,” subjecting them to arrest. They instead wait for the court to appoint a lawyer and only step in after the case is transferred to the felony court, where the risk of harassment and threats is significantly lower. Private defense attorneys did not represent any of the terrorism defendants in the 18 felony trials HRW observed in Baghdad and Ninewa, and the state-appointed defense attorneys reportedly did not actively mount a defense or seek investigations into torture claims. A member of Iraq’s Bar Association in Baghdad told HRW that the government pays state-appointed defense attorneys 25,000 Iraqi dinars ($21) per case, regardless of the amount of time they spend, giving lawyers no incentive to meet their client before the investigative hearing, study the case file, or continue to represent them in subsequent hearings. Lawyers said this lack of representation leaves defendants more vulnerable to abuse.
Government forces held many terrorism-related suspects incommunicado without an arrest warrant and transported detainees to undisclosed detention facilities (see section 1.b.).
Arbitrary Arrest: There were numerous reports of arbitrary or unlawful detention by government forces, including ISF, Federal Police, NSS, PMF, Peshmerga, and Asayish. There were no reliable statistics available regarding the number of such acts or the length of detentions. Authorities often failed to notify family members of the arrest or location of detention, resulting in incommunicado detention if not enforced disappearance (see section 1.b.). Humanitarian organizations also reported that, in many instances, central government forces did not inform detainees of the reasons for their detention or the charges against them. Most reports of arbitrary or unlawful detention involved suspected members or supporters of ISIS and their associates and family members. Individuals arbitrarily or unlawfully detained were predominantly Sunni Arabs, including IDPs. There were reports of Iran-aligned PMF groups also arbitrarily or unlawfully detaining Kurds and Turkmen in Kirkuk and Christians and other minorities in western Ninewa and the Ninewa Plain. A Ninewa-based CSO reported that the proliferation of intelligence, police, and security agencies, including the PMF, making arrests in Mosul complicated the ability of detainees’ families to determine which agencies held their relatives. There were also reports that security forces beat suspects, destroyed their houses, and confiscated property and food rations during operations to detain those with tenuous family ties to ISIS.
A September HRW report detailed the experiences of a man who reportedly was arbitrarily detained by KH for four months in 2014 and whose son remained missing. The man said that he, his son, and their taxi driver were arrested by KH at a checkpoint in Hilla and held for three days in a nearby house used as an unofficial detention center. KH reportedly released the driver but accused the man and his son of being sympathetic to ISIS. The man described how KH frequently beat him and his son with sticks, metal cables, and their hands. KH reportedly moved the two men to a larger unofficial detention facility where they met 64 other detainees, most belonging to the same tribe. After more than four months in squalid conditions, the man said KH dumped him and two older men on a Baghdad highway after a doctor who visited them told KH the men would likely die. The man stated that, as far as he knows, the same facility still held his son.
Pretrial Detention: The Ministries of Justice, Defense, Interior, and Labor and Social Affairs are authorized by law to hold pretrial detainees, as is the NSS in limited circumstances for a brief period. Lengthy pretrial detentions without due process or judicial action were a systemic problem, particularly for those accused of having ties to ISIS. There were no independently verified statistics, however, concerning the number of pretrial detainees in central government facilities, the approximate percentage of the prison and detainee population in pretrial detention, or the average length of time held.
The lack of judicial review resulted from several factors, including a large number of detainees, undocumented detentions, slow processing of criminal investigations, an insufficient number of judges and trained judicial personnel, authorities’ inability or reluctance to use bail or other conditions of release, lack of information sharing, bribery, and corruption. Overcrowding of pretrial detainees remained a problem in many detention centers.
Lengthy pretrial detentions were particularly common in areas liberated from ISIS, where the large number of ISIS-related detainees and use of makeshift facilities led to significant overcrowding and inadequate services. There were reports of both detention beyond judicial release dates and unlawful releases. The destruction of official detention facilities in the war against ISIS led to the use of temporary facilities; for example, the Ministry of Interior reportedly held detainees in homes rented from local residents in Ninewa Governorate.
The government did not publish comprehensive statistics on the status of the more than 1,400 non-Iraqi women and children it detained during military operations in Tal Afar, Ninewa Governorate, in August 2017. In February and June HRW reported problems relating to the detention and trial of those foreign women and children.
Authorities reportedly held numerous detainees without trial for months or years after arrest, particularly those detained under the antiterrorism law. Authorities sometimes held detainees incommunicado, without access to defense counsel, presentation before a judge, or arraignment on formal charges within the legally mandated period. Authorities reportedly detained spouses and other family members of fugitives–mostly Sunni Arabs wanted on terrorism charges–to compel their surrender.
KRG authorities also reportedly held detainees for extensive periods in pretrial detention. According to IKR judicial officials, IKR law permits extension of pretrial detention of up to six months under court supervision. According to local CSOs and the IHRCKR, however, some detainees were held more than six months without trial, and the IHRCKR was tracking the cases of four detainees held for at least four years.
Detainee’s Ability to Challenge Lawfulness of Detention before a Court: The constitution and law grant detainees the right to a prompt judicial determination on the legality of their detention and the right to prompt release. Despite the 2016 reform law concerning rights of detainees, NGOs widely reported that detainees had limited ability to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court and that a bribe was often necessary to get charges dropped unlawfully or gain release from arbitrary detention. While a constitutional right, the law does not allow for compensation for a person found to have been unlawfully detained.
Amnesty: In December 2017 the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament (IKP) issued an amnesty reducing the sentence of prisoners on death row to 15 years in prison, except in cases of terrorism, threatening national security, or killing women in so-called honor killings. While some NGOs protested that such a crosscutting amnesty undermined the justice system, the IHRCKR said that the IKP consulted them and incorporated all of the commission’s recommendations for the law.