Corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan continues (VI)

Kurdishaspect.com - By Baqi Barzani

Veiled from most of the international community and more vitally from our own Kurdish citizens are some top secret detention facilities currently operating in Kurdistan Autonomous Region under the direct executive of the two major ruling parties (PUK, KDP). These secret facilities are known to only a handful of top officials at the party level. They have existed for years without being proclaimed to the general public.

Without any regard to the right of informing the acquaintance of detainees, legally turning over cases to law enforcement authorities to handle, and ultimately leaving it to judiciary branch of our government to deliver a verdict on case basis, both PUK and KDP continue to act like the only absolute powers in the state by detaining, arresting, interrogating, disappearing and in same rare cases even resorting to excessive use of illegal force to stifle political opponents considered threat to their respective security and economic interests.

Myriad such cases abound in Kurdistan. During the elapsed years, individuals were apprehended for dissimilar reasons from dissimilar parts of Kurdistan, held in captivity for months, some disappeared for years and forever, some were released on only condition of not citing or leaking any sensitive particulars, and almost all were threatened to ward off their political activities.

Just like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office were holding prisoners at a secret jail and torturing inmates at another facility, both Kurdish political parties have been following the same path.

PUK and KDP have also been collaborating with the intelligence services of neighboring Iran, Syria, and Turkey in handing over foreign suspects crossing Kurdistan borders back to their host countries to obtain political credit. Many foreign fighters crossed Kurdistan borders. They were never ceded to government to face prosecution, but rather, their fates were ruled by party leaders.

Party officials will certainly defend their approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that their intelligence services be empowered to hold and interrogate citizens under the false pretext of terrorism, sabotage, unrest incitement for as long as necessary and without restrictions.

The existence of powerful intelligence services is key to survival of every country and protection of populace. However, it does imply that political parties will be so empowered to persecute and breach their own citizen’s rights. These matters are by no means of national security concerns, but rather they pose great menace to bipartisan continuation of monopolistic manipulation of every government branch, contravention of state laws and exploitation of public resources.

It is illegal for PUK and KDP to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in Kurdistan. These facilities need to be shut down immediately before it turns into another “Abu Garib” humiliation.

The more one investigates the wrongdoings of our government, the more scandals and truths surface.