Iraq: Attacks by Government-Backed Thugs Chill Protests

[EFerrari]

Source: Human Rights Watch

Iraq: Attacks by Government-Backed Thugs Chill Protests
Security Forces Offered No Protection; Joined Assaults
June 30, 2011

(Baghdad) - Iraqi authorities should order a prompt and impartial inquiry into the role of state security forces in attacks by pro-government gangs against peaceful demonstrators in Baghdad on June 10, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. The groups of mainly young men, armed with wooden planks, knives, iron pipes, and other weapons, beat and stabbed peaceful protesters and sexually molested female demonstrators, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

In the days following the attack, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 25 demonstrators who said they were punched, beaten with sticks or other weapons, or stabbed during the June 10 assault. Human Rights Watch observed and witnesses said that security forces stood by and watched in several instances. Several organizers told Human Rights Watch that the attacks have had a severe chilling effect on people exercising their right to peaceful assembly. In the two Friday demonstrations since then, on June 17 and 24, many regular protesters and organizers have stopped attending the demonstration, mainly because of fear of attacks, they said.

"Instead of protecting peaceful demonstrators, Iraqi soldiers appear to be working hand in hand with the thugs attacking them," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The Iraqi government needs to investigate why the security forces stood by and watched as thugs beat and sexually molested protesters - and take action against those who did so."

Two separate Defense Ministry sources told Human Rights Watch that a ministerial order authorized more than 150 plainclothes security forces from both the police and army to infiltrate the June 10 protests. The sources indicated that the government was worried about increased numbers of demonstrators on that date because the 100-day period for improvements that Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki had promised in February would have ended.



Read more: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/06/30/iraq-attacks-government-backed-thugs-chill-protests

[Vanje]

1. A proud day

(satire, duh)

[LiberalLovinLug]

2. But but but I thought Dubya was fightin for democracy

He said it was the "other" side that "hated us for our freedom"
Freedom of assembly? - not much has changed in Iraq about that since "liberation"

With so much blood and tax dollars from Americans pumped into there the silence from the MSM about that waste is deafening.

[EFerrari]

3. Those may be government thugs, but they're AMERICAN TRAINED thugs, you betcha.

[Vanje]

7. Do you know HOW naive I am?

I am SO naive, that I thought when we elected Obama and a Senate and House majority of Dems in 2008 , ..that this kind of shit would finally end.
I really did believe. Absolutely.

[Vanje]

4. More kick. nt

[Vanje]

5. Even MORE kick nt

[Vanje]

6. These are "our guys"

I hav'nt heard anything about this on the news. think the story should be of great interest here.

Maybe if the subject line contained the word, "pitbull" , or "circumsision", it might spawn some interest here at DU.