AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CRITICIZES IRAQ.
Amnesty International's annual report on Iraq this year concludes that "hundreds of people, among them political prisoners including possible prisoners of conscience, were executed. Hundreds of suspected political opponents, including army officers suspected of planning to overthrow the government, were arrested, and their fate and whereabouts remained unknown." And it adds that new punishments have been introduced, including beheading and amputation of the tongue. Also noted in the AI report was the large-scale application of the death penalty, the extra-judicial executions (especially the beheading of women accused of prostitution in Baghdad under the supervision of the Ba'th Party and the Iraqi Women's General Union), the widespread use of torture, the arrests of suspected political opponents, and the forcible expulsion of Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians fromthe Kirkuk region.

In April of this year, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution condemning the "systematic, widespread, and extremely grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the government of Iraq." Moreover, the UN extended the mandate for the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iraq for another year.

The Iraqi government has not yet responded to Amnesty International's report. (David Nissman)

EXECUTION OF DISSIDENTS SAID TO SPARK ANGER WITHIN IRAQ.
"Iraq Press" on 26 October said that the most recent round of executions of dissidents has sparked a great deal of anger inside Iraq. The nine dissidents executed were accused of being members of a Syrian branch of the ruling Ba'th Party in Iraq. They were executed in Mosul. Some of those executed reportedly worked