Human Rights First Calls on UN Security Council to bear responsibility for Accountability in Iraq (5/21/03)

Post-War Outflow of People from Iraq Creates Dual Challenge

UN Human Rights Monitors Needed in Iraq (04/16/03)

Human Rights First Statement on Reported Iraqi Violations of Geneva Conventions (03/27/03)

Backgrounder: Human Rights First Urges U.S. to Refrain from Transferring War Captives Outside Iraq (04/08/03)

Throughout the war in Iraq and in the post-war period, Human Rights First will monitor, analyze, and conduct advocacy on the following areas.

• Ensuring Protection for Refugees
  
  
• Ensuring Accountability for Past Crimes
  
  
• Ensuring Protection for Detainees Pursuant to International
  Humanitarian Law

Refugee Protection

The most vulnerable people at times of armed conflict are civilian non-combatants who are forced to flee their homes. The majority of these people are women, children and the elderly. Most seek refuge elsewhere within their own countries – these refugees are called internally displaced people – while a significant number of others will need to cross borders to ensure their own safety.

Urgent measures must be taken to protect those who are forced to flee.

Human Rights First is calling for maximum international protection for Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people. At this stage, we urge countries bordering on Iraq to keep borders open to the most desperate refugees who are fleeing for their lives.

Our call echoes a demand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers, who has appealed to all governments neighboring Iraq to keep their borders open to those in need of temporary protection and assistance.

The international community must share this responsibility and the financial burdens associated with it with these neighboring states.

Ensuring Accountability for Past Crimes

The Government of Iraq has been engaged in widespread, gross violations of human rights for more than 25 years, including political killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, and genocide.

During this period the Iraqi Government also has committed serious war crimes, including grave breaches of international humanitarian law. Among these violations were the violent attacks against the Kurds in the late 1980s, including use of chemical weapons, and the violent attacks against Shi’a in the South of Iraq in 1991, where villages were burned and thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced.

Human Rights First is calling on the international community to establish a comprehensive plan for holding those most responsible criminally accountable for their actions. Specifically we are urging the United Nations to set up a Commission of Inquiry into these past crimes with a view to establishing an international criminal tribunal for Iraq. Three principles should guide the Commission in its work. It should:

• Uphold the highest standards of international justice;
  
• Work to set up an independent, impartial international tribunal; and
  
• Reject any calls for blanket amnesties.

The war in Iraq is governed by international humanitarian law. Human Rights First is calling on all parties to the conflict to adhere to these standards in the treatment of those who are detained. Specifically we urge parties to recognize formally that the law of international armed conflict applies and that the obligations of the Geneva Conventions do not depend on reciprocity. All persons not taking part in hostilities or no longer taking part in hostilities must be protected and treated with respect.

Support for human rights activists in the Middle East

Real and lasting change comes from within societies. In the Middle East local human rights leaders are a driving force for change. Often they work at enormous personal risk. Human Rights First is working to lend support and protection to these human rights activists. We also seek to amplify their voices, and to urge their governments to give local non-governmental organizations the latitude to operate freely.

Challenging the Prolonged Detention of Iraqi and other Middle Eastern Asylum Seekers in the US

"Operation Liberty Shield" is a new plan announced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Under this new policy, the U.S. government will detain all asylum applicants from Iraq and other 32 other countries from the Middle East and other countries with large Islamic populations. Human Rights First is challenging this new policy which targets the very people who are fleeing from persecution in these countries, solely on the basis of their nationality.