The press conference raised eyebrows because it was held in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, and Allawi appeared side by side with Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of a Shiite-based movement that clashed repeatedly with the US occupation, only to line up behind Maliki in last year's parliamentary maneuvering.
Both Allawi and Al-Sadr criticized the growing concentration of power in the hands of Maliki, particularly in the wake of a court ruling that gave the prime minister power to place his nominees in control of Iraq's central bank, the human rights committee, and many other agencies.
Beyond the factional interests of Maliki's bourgeois opponents, however, there is indisputable evidence of a turn to mass repression on the part of the regime that was created by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
A report issued by the US-based Human Rights Watch February 21 found that "human rights abuses are commonplace" in Iraq. "Eight years after the US invasion, life in Iraq is actually getting worse for women and minorities, while journalists and detainees face significant rights violations," the organization declared. "Today, Iraq is at a crossroads--either it embraces due process and human rights or it risks reverting to a police state."
Despite widespread reports of systematic torture by Iraqi police interrogators, the report said, US military authorities routinely transfer detainees to Iraqi prisons where they know they will be abused, the report said.
Human Rights Watch singled out a severe retrogression in the status of women and girls, who under the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were "relatively better protected than other countries in the region." Forced marriages, forced prostitution, domestic abuse and sexual abuse have all risen sharply in the years since the US invasion.
The report also pointed to mounting attacks on what it called "marginalized groups," including religious minorities like Sabian Mandaeans, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, and Yazidis, as well abuse and discrimination against the tens of thousands of amputees and others disabled by war, civil war and terrorist attacks.
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