Increasingly, journalists find themselves harassed, intimidated, threatened, arrested, and physically assaulted by security forces attached to government institutions and political parties. Senior politicians are quick to sue journalists and their publications for unflattering articles. The government should amend vague legislative and regulatory content-based restrictions that curtail the right to freedom of expression, and direct security forces not to harass, abuse, and intimidate journalists.
According to Human Rights Watch, the 2003 invasion and its resulting chaos "have exacted an enormous toll on Iraq's citizens. Over the past eight years, violence has claimed tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and millions continue to suffer from the effects of insecurity."
Iraq has made some recent progress as it has pulled itself away from the civil strife that engulfed the country, especially in 2006 and 2007. "But terror attacks increased again in the run-up to the March 2010 parliamentary elections" and did not abate in the months that followed. Only in November, eight months after those elections, did Iraq's political parties
finally agree to form a new coalition government ending the political crisis that has stunted progress on security and other fronts, including human rights.
The Human Rights Watch report is based on on-the-ground research conducted in April 2010, visiting seven cities across Iraq and interviewing 178 activists, lawyers, journalists, religious leaders, detainees (former and current), security officers, victims of violence, and ordinary Iraqis.
"We found that, beyond the continuing violence and crimes associated with it, human rights abuses are commonplace. This report presents those findings regarding violations of the rights of women and other vulnerable populations, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to be free from torture and ill-treatment in the 2009-2010 period," HRW said.
The Rights of Women and Girls have also been adversely affected by the deterioration of security, which has promoted a rise in tribal customs and
religiously-inflected political extremism. "This has had a deleterious effect on women's rights, both inside and outside the home. For Iraqi women, who enjoyed some of the highest levels of rights protection and social participation in the region before 1991, these have been heavy blows," HRW said.
It added: "Militias promoting misogynist ideologies have targeted women and girls for assassination, and intimidated them to stay out of public life. Increasingly, women and girls are victimized in their own homes, sometimes killed by their fathers, brothers and husbands for a wide variety of perceived transgressions that allegedly shame the family or tribe. If they seek official protection from violence in the home, women risk harassment and abuse from Iraq's virtually all-male police and other security forces."
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