Human Rights Watch blasts Iraq on executions

[Say_What]

<clips>

NEW YORK: The Iraqi prime minister's vigorous defense of Saddam Hussein's execution and plans to execute two of Saddam's top aides show the government's "disregard for human rights and the rule of law," Human Rights Watch said in a statement for release Monday.

Despite a growing international outcry over the sectarian taunts leveled at Saddam as he stood on the gallows with a noose around his neck, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stood firm on his view that justice was done.

"The execution of the tyrant was not a political decision, as the enemies of the Iraqi people say. The verdict was implemented after a fair and transparent trial, which the dictator never deserved," al-Maliki said on Saturday.

Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi government to halt the upcoming executions of two top aides to Saddam — his half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar.

"The tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due process rights of all of the defendants," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. "The execution of these two, however heinous the crimes involved, is cruel and inhuman punishment that will only drag a deeply flawed process into even greater disrepute."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/08/america/NA-GEN-US-Iraq-Executions.php

[Erika]

1. Saddam was hung by his sectarian enemies

What a disgrace.

[MADem]

2. They would have been better off with an international trial, of course, that would have screwed them

out of their precious death penalty....

[Erika]

3. It was the Texas rock and roll guerneys in play

W killled Saddam just like he did Karla Fay, He had a smile on his face both times.

[LynnTheDem]

4. HRW, AI, UN building new dossiers on the new US-puppets of Iraq.

Same shit.

Different assholes.

In Iraq.

In America it's same shit, same assholes.

[David__77]

5. HRW has little credibility with me.

They veritably cheerleaded for war against Yugoslavia, a sovereign state. They're part of the problem, even though they sometimes speak the truth.

[Say_What]

6. Agree. Tariq Ali refers to HRW as the "largest single unit of the US human rights industry",

which is the truth.

It was symbolic that 2006 ended with a colonial hanging--- most of it (bar the last moments) shown on state television in occupied Iraq. It has been that sort of year in the Arab world. After a trial so blatantly rigged that even Human Rights Watch---the largest single unit of the US Human Rights industry--- had to condemn it as a total travesty. Judges were changed on Washington's orders; defense lawyers were killed and the whole procedure resembled a well-orchestrated lynch mob. Where Nuremberg was a more dignified application of victor's justice, Saddam's trial has, till now, been the crudest and most grotesque. The Great Thinker President's reference to it 'as a milestone on the road to Iraqi democracy' as clear an indication as any that Washington pressed the trigger.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x253934