Iraq’s government must deliver on its human rights commitments to end systemic impunity for human rights violations, uphold women’s and girls’ rights, and guarantee fundamental freedoms, Amnesty International said today in an open letter to Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi marking three months since the adoption of a new ministerial program.
Three months after launching the government’s 2026–2029 Ministerial Program on May 14, 2026, little progress has been made on delivering on promises to strengthen human rights, empower women, and bolster independent civil society.
Despite commitments to address the scourge of violence against women and girls, survivors are left with little redress and protection, including from femicides, as draft domestic violence legislation – introduced more than a decade ago – remains stalled in Iraqi parliament. Further, amendments to the Personal Status Code adopted in August 2025—based on Jaafari Shia jurisprudence— continue to undermine the equality of women and girls before the law.
Independent civil society activists, journalists, and human rights defenders face intimidation, judicial harassment, and physical violence for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly. Peaceful protesters demanding basic rights, including during demonstrations in June and July 2026 against electricity cuts in the southern city of al-Kut, continue to be met with unlawful force by security forces and detentions.
“This Government must chart a new course for Iraq, in particular for those whose human rights have been violated with impunity for too long: women and girls, detainees, those forcibly disappeared and their relatives, human rights defenders, activists and media workers,” said Razaw Salihy, Iraq Researcher at Amnesty International.
“The Prime Minister must prioritize the adoption of comprehensive legislation against gender-based violence, ensure prompt and impartial investigations into attacks on activists, end the use of ‘public morality’ campaigns that undermine freedom of expression and peaceful dissent and remove restrictions and any form of interference on independent media.”
Human rights defenders, especially women’s rights defenders, journalists, and activists, continue to face persistent attacks, intimidation, and judicial harassment simply for doing their job. The first half of 2026 saw escalating attacks, including the March 2 assassination of activist Yanar Mohammed in the capital city of Baghdad. Investigations were announced, but no information has been publicly shared on their progress. Another activist survived an attempted killing on April 21 in Babel governorate. Instead of ensuring accountability for these targeted attacks, the Iraqi authorities are actively shrinking civic space by enforcing vague “indecent content” rules, imposing punitive restrictions on independent media, using “dormant arrest warrants” to instill fear, and deploying unlawful force against peaceful protesters.
In prisons across Iraq, overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and a critical lack of access to healthcare make conditions cruel and inhuman. Families of detainees routinely report the ill-treatment of their loved ones as well as denial of or delays in accessing medical care. Furthermore, despite well-documented fair trial violations, thousands, primarily convicted of terrorism-related offenses, remain at risk of execution.
“This Government must demonstrate unequivocal resolve in ending the long-standing denial of truth and justice to the anguished families of the thousands of victims of enforced disappearance by revealing their fate and providing adequate reparations for the harm suffered,” said Razaw Salihy.
“Iraq’s Prime Minister must also break with the past by immediately establishing an official moratorium on all executions and guaranteeing justice for survivors of torture, which must be stamped out without further delay.”
Background
This ongoing systemic impunity is rooted in years of unaddressed state abuses and historic violations across the country. Authorities have consistently failed to hold perpetrators accountable for the violent crackdown on the 2019 nationwide protests, referred to as the Tishreen movement, leaving survivors and victims’ relatives without redress. Similarly, justice remains systematically denied to the families of thousands of men and boys who were arbitrarily arrested or abducted and forcibly disappeared following military operations against the Islamic State armed group, including at least 643 individuals abducted from Saqlawiya, Anbar governorate, a decade ago in 2016 and whose fates remain unknown.
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