UN: Rights abuses continue as violence falls in Iraq

Human rights abuses in Iraq remain widespread despite a significant drop in overall violence, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The situation in Iraqi prisons was particularly acute, the U.N. Assistance Mission to Iraq said in a report, released ahead of the transfer next year of possibly thousands of detainees from U.S. military control to Iraqi authorities. Many detainees in Iraqi jails had been held for months or years without being charged, granted access to lawyers or even to a judge, the report said. Allegations of widespread torture and ill-treatment were of particular concern. "They need to be charged, they need to have access to legal counsel and the cases need to be investigated," the head of the U.N. mission, Staffan de Mistura, said in a news conference. Under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact that comes into force next year, the U.S. forces who invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein will have to hand over to Iraqi control more than 16,000 detainees currently held in U.S. camps. Those facing Iraqi arrest warrants will likely end up in Iraqi prisons while the rest will have to be freed. Many were detained at the height of the mainly Sunni Arab insurgency and the sectarian violence between minority Sunni Arabs and now dominant Shi'ites. Iraqi prisons are already crowded and in a precarious condition, the U.N. said. "The release (of those detainees) will obviously be a major challenge for the Iraqi authorities, but the Iraqi authorities have the intention and the duty to (give) those detainees the best possible conditions," de Mistura said. The U.N. report referred only to the first six months of 2008 because its author had to break off halfway through the year for personal reasons. The U.N. said conditions in the justice system in the semi autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq were not much better. There were cases of prolonged detention on vague accusations and long delays of up to four years in bringing people to trial. In total, there were 50,595 detainees held in Iraqi prisons at the of June, the U.N. said. "In one prison, 123 prisoners were found in a 50 sq metre cell," de Mistura said. The U.N. report also highlighted the targeted killings of journalists, teachers, doctors, judges, government officials and minorities, such as Christians or Turkmen, as causes for concern. In addition, it said women faced difficulties across Iraq as conservative groups tried to restrict their freedoms. Women's rights were also threatened in Kurdistan, where 50 women were murdered and 150 burned in the first six months of this year as a result of so called "honour crimes".