April 24, 2025 09:08 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Canada only G7 nation to keep mum on Kashmir terror attack that claimed 26 lives | PM Modi chairs top security committee meeting at his residence to discuss Pahalgam terror attack | Indian Army foils infiltration bid a day after Pahalgam horror, eliminates two terrorists along LoC in Uri sector | Navy officer, IB personnel among 27 killed in Pahalgam terror attack; Amit Shah reaches Srinagar | 'Thoughts and prayers with people of India': JD Vance condoles deaths in J&K terror strike | At least 27 killed in Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir, Amit Shah leaves for Srinagar | 'Resume teaching without worrying': Mamata Banerjee to job losers camped outside SSC office | A great leader: JD Vance praises Modi after meeting him in New Delhi | ED summons southern superstar Mahesh Babu for questioning in money laundering case | Woman found dead with throat slit, ankles severed in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur; sparks outrage

Iraq: UN rights chief 'deeply dismayed' at execution of 36 people

| | Aug 24, 2016, at 03:48 am
New York, Aug 23 (Just Earth News): The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, has expressed deep dismay at the execution of 36 people in Iraq in relation to a 2014 massacre during which hundreds of military cadets were killed.

“The High Commissioner  urged the authorities to ensure that any trials conducted in connection with the massacre respected due process and international fair trial rather than be fuelled by vengeance,” Cécile Pouilly, a spokesperson for OHCHR, told the press on Tuesday at a regular briefing in Geneva.

“Unfortunately, this was not the case,” she added.

In June 2014, some 1,700 cadets at the Camp Speicher military base were killed in an attack by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, Da'esh) fighters.

In the aftermath of the killings, the UN human rights chief had expressed that the “magnitude and brutality of the Camp Speicher massacre was exceptional” and that it was important to respond to the plight of the survivors and families of the victims.

At the briefing on Tuesday, the OHCHR spokesperson said that the executions, carried out on Sunday, were particularly worrying given serious due process concerns and fair trial shortcomings.

“The individuals who have been executed were convicted only on the basis of information provided by secret informants or by confessions allegedly extracted under duress,” she noted, adding that the claims of 19 defendants that they were tortured to induce confessions were never investigated.

Furthermore, she said that the Court-appointed lawyer who represented the defendants, did not intervene during the proceedings, and made only a three-minute statement before the verdicts were delivered.

According to OHCHR, an estimated 1,200 individuals remain on death row in Iraq.

Urging the authorities to halt all imminent executions, Ms. Pouilly called on them to “urgently conduct a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system in the country.”

UN Photo

Source: www.justearthnews.com

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
Close menu