Amnesty International Report on Kurdish abuses in Northern Iraq

14 April 2009
Amnesty International Report:

Kurdish security forces arbitrarily detain, torture people

Honor killings, other attacks on women need to end, it says
Journalists have been detained, beaten and harassed by security forces, report says

(CNN) -- The Kurdish region of Iraq has seen gains in human rights, but security forces "regularly abuse their authority" and women continue to be targets of violence, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The international human rights group drew the conclusions in a report titled "Hope and Fear, Human Rights in Kurdistan Region of Iraq."

Amnesty International report on Kurdistan region (PDF)

The Kurdish region has been an island of relative stability during the Iraq war, and the report said it has "witnessed growing prosperity" and has made progress in human rights. But serious problems remain, Amnesty said.
Asayish forces, as the local security forces are called, arrested and arbitrarily detained people, "including some who were tortured or forcibly disappeared and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown," the report said.