Iraq: A State of Surveillance – Databases, Tracking And Corruption

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Iraqi Airways flight 238 from London Gatwick to Baghdad circles over the suburbs as dawn breaks. The amber light suffuses the smoke trailing for miles from the Dora oil refinery, the fine turquoise tiles of the split dome of the Shaheed monument, the Ferris wheels of the parks, the landmarks along the Tigris, and US Embassy and finally, Fao Palace – still partly destroyed, where it remains perched beside its artificial lake. The flight lands most Sunday mornings after a short night flight from London.

Also in the air are American patrol helicopters, independent cyber surveillance satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones like the MQ-9 “Reaper” drone with “persistent hunter killer” capabilities, the Global Hawk and hand-launched RA11 Raven, equipped with sensors for “real time data”, generally equipped with air-ground missiles such as that which on 3 January 2020 effected the assassination of IRGC Quds Forces leader, Qassem Soleimani, and his co-travellers, just a short distance along the airport road.1

Inside the ground floor arrivals terminal, the Iraqi immigration police (and plainclothes Iraqi and ethnic Iranian agents) screen the arrivals as they enter the hall. The agents are there to monitor ex-patriate Iraqis, foreign NGO staff, business people and assorted travellers.

Evident from their names and British passports, Sunni ex-pats remain of primary adverse interest and are more than likely to be kept back whilst Shi’a families, Shi’a pilgrims and Iranian passport holders are let through quickly. One man commented angrily, “If you are Iranian you will have no problem.” He was kept waiting for two hours after the police took his passport – just because they could. Finally, with a brusque wave of the hand he was called back over to the desk and re-admitted to his homeland. He had clearly passed the screening checks.

If you are named, or blacklisted, in any one of Iraq’s parallel sets of databases you are likely to be seized at this point or some time later depending on orders for continued surveillance. You are also likely to be known in Iran.

In Kurdistan, such ‘blacklists’ have been in operation since the 1991 uprising and have been greatly expanded upon since regime change in 2003. The region has also been extensively co-operating with Iran since the Iran-Iraq war, including against Iranian Kurdish political parties and activists and the Turkey-founded PKK. The elite families ruling the Kurdistan Regional Government pursue lucrative private businesses with both Turkey and Iran: Nationalist sentiments and aspirations do not get in the way…

The Iran Cables files – serious Iranian intelligence leaks – were translated and made public by the Intercept in 2019. The files detail Iranian infiltration in Iraq all the way to the Prime Minister’s office but also in terms of surveillance, also recording those coming through Baghdad airport: “…Iraqi officials, if necessary, are offered bribes. The archive even contains expense reports from intelligence ministry officers in Iraq, including one totaling 87.5 euros spent on gifts for a Kurdish commander.” It is made up of hundreds of reports and cables written mainly in 2014 and 2015 by officers of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or M.O.I.S., who were serving in the field in Iraq…”

The job of the MOIS agents was facilitated by their alliances with the pro-Iran Shi’a Iraqi leaders that had spent their years of exile in Iran when plotting to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The documents expose which of “Iraq’s foremost political, military, and security officials have had secret relationships with Tehran.”2

The leaked documents are also useful when it comes to assessing what information may be held by Iran on Iraqis viewed as opponents to Tehran and/or overtly pro-Western. In compiling blacklists of Iran’s enemies in Iraq and maintaining databases such influences are still very much at work. Indeed, Iran’s influence in the run-up to the May 2018 elections and composition of the new government ever since has been extensive. It has also made itself felt in a wholly detrimental manner in the deaths of the protestors since last October, many thousands killed in live fire by security forces that have included Iranian armed snipers.

Iran’s backing of key Shi’a militia groups including the Badr Organisation, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Katai’b Hezbollah has extended in formal policy terms to Iraq’s Embassies and Consulates abroad. Consular staff were ordered to obtain full details of Iraqi asylum seekers and refugees seeking to document themselves or when obtaining other consular services. The information is relayed to the intelligence sectors and Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials in Baghdad.3

Former Ba’ath records and anti-Sunni policy implementation

The Ba’ath era lists, the post-Ba’athist de-Ba’athification lists, the al-Maliki period databases and politically motivated wanted lists, the ISIS ‘administration’ infiltration lists and other blacklists have been used for political ends by the successive regimes and militant groups and are still prone to being so. As most of this security information is now centralised, the Kurdish authorities can also access it, and, significantly, any official can add to it.

The old Ba’ath Party records were digitized and the content made available for ‘research’ by the Hoover Institution in the United States. Many hundreds of thousands of these records are still held in the US.

In much the same manner, US Centcom gathered (and retained) the biometric data of some 3 million Iraqis. The US has been wary of handing this data set over to the successive Shi’a dominated Iraqi governments for fear of retribution but Iraqis want all their records to be returned to Iraq.

The national population records database and the Ba’ath era security databases have now been almost entirely digitized from the original handwritten records.

The main security database was made operational in the Kurdistan region on 16 October 2017. At that date, the Iraqi government and Shi’a militia forces retook control of the disputed areas from the Kurds and demanded control in the airports4.

Back in March 15, 2004, the New Statesman published an article by Stephen Grey titled “Rule of the Death Squads”, which observed that ‘There are political parties in this city who are systematically killing people. They are politicians that are backed by the Americans and who arrived to Iraq from exile with a list of their enemies. I’ve seen these lists. They are killing people one by one.’ As noted by Nicolas J.S Davies in his book, ‘Blood on our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq’: ‘Other Iraqi officials told Grey that many of the dead were victims of “death by Google.” If their names appeared on lists of Baath Party members or supporters on the internet, they were automatically added to the death squad’s lists. By some accounts, the internet lists were originally published by the Iranian secret service, with the intention that they would be used by death squads whenever Saddam Hussein’s regime was eventually overthrown. They included much of the civic leadership of the country, from military officers to scientists and academics to writers and artists…”5

The security records have been misused for purposes of political and personal retribution since regime change.

In 2010, Iraq’s government requested that the records taken by the US in 2008 be returned on a five-year loan but they were not returned for security reasons: “Hoover is resisting because it doesn’t deem security in Baghdad sufficient to ensure the documents’ security.

‘The records consist of more than seven million documents that once belonged to Iraq’s Baath Party and security forces, which ruled the country from 1968 until its overthrow by U.S. and coalition forces in 2003. The documents came to Hoover via the Iraq Memory Foundation (IMF), a Washington, D.C.-based group that entered Baghdad in 2003 to protect historical records.6

Shi’a intellectual, Kanan Makiya, was instrumental in setting up and overseeing the project. Son of the celebrated Iraqi architect, Mohamed Makiya, (who founded Al Saqi Books and the Kufa Gallery in London during his years in exile) writer, Kanan Makiya is also an old associate of the recently appointed Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Khadimi that took office in May 2020 – both being secular Shi’a exiles that spent years of Ba’ath rule in the West. Makiya had written two key books under his nom de plume, Samir al-Khalil, on human rights abuses in Iraq under Saddam, spearheading efforts leading to overthrow the Ba’ath regime – efforts that were further exploited by the INC and INA under Ahmed Chalabi and Iyad Allawi respectively, used as successive champions of Bush and Blair in advancing the CIA’s war on Iraq and Bush and Blair’s oil strategies.

Mustafa Al-Khadimi also worked as a journalist for Al Monitor before being appointed Head of Iraqi Intelligence. Interestingly, the former head of Kurdish Intelligence, son of the KDP leader, Masrour Barzani, has also stepped into Prime Minister’s shoes in taking over the post for the Kurdistan Region.

The Iraqi street views the former Shi’a exiles as having either collaborated with the West to benefit from regime change, or backing the ‘turbans’ after sheltering in Iran.

Intelligence files and security records first began to be digitized by the Americans under the CPA: “The Americans went into the defence ministry a month after the occupation and found thousands of highly classified files still intact. Reports that Baath party activists and Saddam’s security service people had been rushing around all the buildings in Baghdad destroying sensitive documents were not correct…A third factor of state activity that was crucial for most Iraqis was the continued supply of subsidized food rations. Every Iraqi family was listed on computerized records held at small warehouses in each neighbourhood… so the subsidized food supplies continued under the same system of UN-run financing as before the invasion, a clear sign for Iraqis that the state had not collapsed. The real issue was who ran the state.7

The Americans also sought to sell their surveillance and telephone tap/bugging technology to Iraq when helping to set up and train the new Iraqi police force and army. The Washington Post observed in 2011 how “…An American contractor would buy, install and maintain the equipment, and would train the Iraqis to run it. As envisioned in the solicitation, the system’s computerized monitoring stations will be located in Baghdad at an existing signals intelligence center (SIGINT), backed up by computer servers at the Interior Ministry’s National Information and Investigation Agency, the country’s primary investigative agency…”

The Iraq intercept system was to include sophisticated tracking capabilities and, like Centcom’s own database, would be capable of maintaining a database of “a comprehensive catalog of targets, associates and relationships,” according to the statement of work… with the ability to locate targets being monitored and a warning alarm of less than 10 minutes if two or more targets come within a defined distance of each other…8

As is clear from these records and other country information in the public domain, a vast and complex security and intelligence apparatus functioned under Saddam Hussein for some thirty years. This is well referenced in the Western-biased book, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party: Inside an Authoritarian regime by Joseph Sassoon. 9 But who has had access to it since?

HRW made extensive reference to how this information was being exploited after regime change with the replacement of the Saddam-era intelligence agencies under the CPA and new Iraqi government in a report headed The New Iraq: Torture and ill treatment.10

The security records and overlapping civil status office population records also became prone early on to interception by Iranian intelligence through its pro-Iran ministers and operatives in the new government, as referred to above.

The first post-Saddam Iraqi Security Forces’ American trainers compiled new records while making use of the Ba’ath data sets to try to unmask Sunni (and later, Shi’a) agents that infiltrated the police and security services. “This works because Saddam Hussein’s regime, like many dictatorships, kept extensive records on their friends and their enemies. So by digitizing those records and looking for matches among recruits, the police trainers have been able to catch scores of former felons, Ba’athists and other ne’er-do-wells before they donned the blue uniform, according to U.S. Army Brigadier General David Phillips. “We have caught people coming straight out of jail.”11

When in power as Prime Minister, Dawa party leader, Nouri Al-Maliki12, sought to usurp the intelligence agencies and dictate their operations for his own political ends, putting his own people into key positions in the security and intelligence agencies.

The Washington Post noted: “Diplomatic cables leaked to a Lebanese newspaper (Al Akhbar) show that Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pumped dozens of loyalists to his Shiite party into the security and intelligence services in the leading up to Iraq’s March 7 elections. The cables acknowledge…that Maliki, recently re-nominated for prime minister, methodically tried to rid Iraq’s security apparatuses of opposition to his party prior to Iraq’s election…14

After his first term in office between June-December 2006 – at the height of the crack down on the Sunni resistance – he went on to enjoy a further period in office between 2010-2014 and the dawn of the ISIS era, forced to step down in August with Haider al-Abadi taking over at a critical time as ISIS consolidated its power across north and central Iraq.

The Ba’ath records – ‘live’ intelligence data: Who is using the records against whom?

The Ba’ath era documents are now formally referred to as the Register of the Hizb al-Ba’th al-‘Arabi al-Ishtirakial- Iraqia and include ‘correspondence, reports, membership and personnel files, judicial and investigatory dossiers, administrative files and registers, and video-recordings relating to political conditions in, and governance of, Iraq. Collected by the Iraq Memory Foundation (Mu’assasat al-dhakirah al-‘Iraqiyah) from the Ba’ath Regional Command headquarters and from secondary sources.

Extent

11 million digitized page images and 107 digital video files. The categories are as follows and clicking on any one of them will link to the website of the register

North Iraq dataset (NIDS)

Kuwait dataset (KDS)

School registers dataset (BRCC-SRDS)

Boxfiles dataset (BRCC-Boxfiles)

Regional Command correspondence

Regional Command dossiers

National Command dossiers

Artifacts dataset (BRCC-Artifacts)

Membership files dataset,

Ba’th Arab Socialist Party (BASP) regular membership files

Ba’th Arab Socialist Party (BASP) special membership files

Regional Command Ba’th Arab Socialist Party (BASP) membership files

Special Security Agency files

2004 secondary collection dataset,

2005 secondary collection dataset

Ministry of Information selected documents dataset,

Jewish presence in Iraq dataset

Video documents from the Ba’th Regime Era

Broadcast elements from the Ba’th Regime Era

Non-Broadcast elements from the Ba’th Regime Era 15

Owing to the sect-based change in power in Iraq and subsequent U-turn in policy direction, political competition and manipulation of the law between rival blocs and sects has become the order of the day in defining the ‘enemy’.

A key problem is also the ‘multiplying number of different forces gathering intelligence within Iraq… these include the…INIS, the Ministry of the Interior’s intelligence and investigation agency, two different departments for intelligence gathering under the control of the Ministry of Defence, a counter-terrorism-focused intelligence department and the intelligence services for borders and customs. There are also intelligence officers associated with the Shiite Muslim volunteer militias…”16

The US State Department had undertaken an early review back in 2007 raising concerns then about the flaws in the system, as well as the significant risks of infiltration and lack of co-operation between the various agencies, noting only the four main intelligence organisations that were in operation: the DGIS – Directorate General of Intelligence and Security within the MoD; the NIIA – National Information and Investigation Agency under the MOI, INIS – Iraqi National Intelligence System – the primary intelligence agency and the MSNSA – Ministry of State for National Security Affairs that had established an independent intelligence agency.17

More than eleven different intelligence agencies are now in operation, including in Kurdistan, the Asayish (Internal Security Forces), and that the Parastin and Dazgay Zaniari intelligence agencies officially unified in 2011 33. The flaws in the system owing to a lack of independence and domination by various rival political players have nonetheless become part of the system itself.

The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) were trained by the US 101st Airborne Division and 82nd Airborne Division during the course of the war. In Kurdistan, the equivalent is the Peshmerga.

Human Rights Watch has provided information on those agencies responsible for human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances, that occurred between 2014-2017 in its report “Life Without a Father is Meaningless.” The number of disappearances each is credited with is also given alongside its name. 18 Most of these same agencies have also been named since in the killing and injuring of civilian protesters across Iraq since October 2019.

HRW observed: “All of those disappeared from checkpoints but one were Sunni men and boys from areas that fell under Islamic State control for varying periods of time, and the disappearances took place as part of terrorism screening procedures. The apprehensions from homes were in some cases security sweeps of residents residing in areas formerly under the control of ISIS while others were seemingly targeted arrest operations.

“The disappearances were carried out by a range of security forces, including, the Anbar Operations Command, Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), PMF, Federal Police, Ministry of Interior’s Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Office, National Security Service (NSS), SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics), Prime Minister’s Special Forces (a set of units charged with the protection of the Prime Minister, the International Zone in Baghdad, as well as the city itself), and Kurdistan Regional Government’s Asayish Forces.

“The accounts of the disappearances documented for this report focus on both the forces involved in the disappearances, and the location and manner in which they took place. The accounts represent a snapshot of disappearances perpetrated by the different actors in Iraq between 2014-2017. Given the small sample size these findings cannot be viewed as representative of disappearances in Iraq, they do however highlight certain key actors, weaknesses within the system of law enforcement, and potential trends.”

Armed forces under the Prime Minister

Prime Minister’s Special Force

Ministry of Interior:

Iraqi Police (Federal Police)

Facilities Protection Service

Department of Border Enforcement

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/Hashd al-Sha’abi) – Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Badr Organisation al come under the Prime Minister’s jurisdiction as do those PMF militia groups with “unclear affiliation”

Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Office under the MOI

SWAT (Special Weapons and tactics)

The Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS), is the main agency and replaced the General Security Directorate set up in January 2004 under PM Iyad Allawi to “infiltrate and annihilate Iraq’s tenacious insurgency.”

Then there are also the armed forces under the Ministry of Defense

Iraqi Armed Forces:

Iraqi Army

Iraqi Navy

Iraqi Air Force

Forces from the Anbar Operations Command (named in the HRW report as having carried out abuses).

‘Honour’ crimes, blood feuds, revenge killings and tracing targets

In tribal feuds, blood feuds, ‘honour’ risks cases and revenge pursuits linked to patriarchal traditions or political expedience, the individual being sought will be highly unlikely to be able to avail him or herself of state protection. This is because state actors and security officials lack independence and are members of political blocs or come from leading tribes and families.

Civilians struggling to flee for their lives can be traced if they register any new residential address.

The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration also uses intelligence for political ends. As power is still concentrated in the hands of the two main parties, the KDP and PUK, and the Parastin and Asayish forces, the disunited Peshmerga are often exploited in the targeting of political foes, including dissidents and critics, as well as women and girls seen as having tarnished the patriarchal ‘honour’ of the family.

Tribal traditions revolving around ‘honour’, including forced and arranged marriages include superstition based practices like FGM. FGM continues to bring grave harm to thousands of girls every year in the Kurdistan region.

To a lesser extent, males viewed as violating the macho ideal as is the case with gay men and boys also face risks of ostracism, of attack , of being trafficked for sex to older men, and of being killed.19

Given the screening of ID cards at checkpoints as well as at the entrance to official buildings and many malls and supermarkets interception within the borders of the KRG is particularly easy. Details can be relayed on portable devices for any person to be detained at any point along the route. That person can then be taken to the police station or security headquarters for interrogation – and, potentially, for punishment.

Women and girls face a very high risk of being handed back over to their families despite the risks of their being killed by them owing to the patriarchal values that underpin Kurdish society and the political system in place. Shelters lack protection and cannot provide long-term solutions to any women or girls at risk.

A number of senior Kurdish officials have also been accused of ‘honour’ crimes and revenge killings but all have been protected by their parties and tribes and set free by the police or the courts if the matter got that far. The main political parties and their respective police forces thereby become complicit in covering up murders in the name of ‘honour’. 20

Infiltration and split loyalties

In greater Iraq, infiltration of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) by the Shi’a militia has continued since the heights of the sectarian violence under al-Maliki. The militias also directly intimidate, threaten, attack and kill other Shias and Sunnis for such ‘offences’ as collaborating with the US military or working for Western companies including the international oil and has companies, security companies and other kinds of businesses.

Split loyalties come into operation at the level of the police as well as at officer level over sect, tribe, family and political party membership. Varying loyalties also factor in concerning the conduct of those appointed to posts in the ministries on a nepotistic basis. Currently, an overt embrace of the role of the Shi’a militias is seen as mandatory. ‘Iraqi policemen have complained that whenever they moved against militias, they would receive phone calls from top politicians telling them to allow these militias to operate. Political interference in ISF matters comes from the highest levels of the Iraqi government. The office of the prime minister itself has been accused of firing or arresting Iraqi Army and National Police commanders who are willing to confront Shi’ite militias. Iraq’s intelligence agencies have also been tainted by the sectarian conflict. Iraq’s main intelligence agency, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has been hampered by distrust among the government’s Shi’ite elite of its aggressive actions against Iranian influence and its close ties to America. A second, quasi-legal intelligence agency began to operate under the auspices of the Shi’ite minister for national security affairs. This agency has repeatedly been accused of favouring Shi’ite interests.4 21’

The new style biometric ID cards, biometric databases – BIAS -Biometric Identification System for Access

According to the Iraqi General Directorate for Nationality website, the Directorate “was formed to issue National ID Cards with very high security features through the use of advanced systems such as the Civil Registry and the Unified [National] Database which includes citizens and legal residents” (Iraq ND). According to the same source, the Directorate aims at

1.    Building a Unified National Database which includes all Iraqi citizens and legal residents.

2.    Granting a National Number for every Iraqi citizen which is unique and a key for record relationships within the Unified Database.

3.    Issuing a modern National ID [card] which is very difficult to counterfeit for all Iraqi citizens and legal residents.

4.    Evolving the current Civil Registry system from manual into electronic.

5.    Using the National ID [card] as the basis for passport issuance. (Iraq ND) 22

The English website of Veridos GmbH, “a Germany-based provider of identification and identity solutions, which is affiliated with G&D (Veridos n.d.a), in Iraq, the company provides solutions for the delivery of the new National Register, the IT and data acquisition infrastructure, the entire personalization system, ID Card production and delivery, all associated services, such as Training, Technical Support and Maintenance. It also comprises the electronic archiving of the Civil Status records. (Veridos n.d.b)…In its 2013 press release, G&D stated that the company “will set up around 2,500 data acquisition stations and 25 regional personalization centers across the country as well as a redundantly designed IT data center in the framework of this major project” (G&D 31 Oct. 2013).

“In its 2015 annual report, G&D indicated that the company was involved in the creation of an Iraqi “citizen database” (G&D Apr. 2016, 2) and some 40,000 handwritten family books had already been digitized” and “important records from the analogue era preserved … for the future in the new National Registry” (G&D Apr. 2016, 2)…A newly established directorate under the Department of Domestic Affairs (MOI) ‘The Directorate for National ID Card’ (Mudiriyyat shu’un al-bitaqua al-wataniyya) is responsible for the project.”23

As each individual’s unique biometric data captured on their ID card will be directly linked to database information held about them (and their family page) going back to the Ba’ath era, surveillance, tracking, and, indeed, interception anywhere in Iraq becomes easy and within a potentially short matter of time. Everyone must also register their address and this address must be in date and verifiable or penalties can be imposed.

The various sets of databases in existence can be accessed by politicians, tribal leaders and security operatives in vetting individuals and their families and particularly those individuals that pose a threat to an official’s personal power, prestige, wealth or ‘honour.’

As biometric ID cards can be read with portable devices linked to the centralised databases, concerns remain high over information falling into the wrong hands. The database can easily be exploited as a hit list.24

Any Iraqi national in greater Iraq wishing to move from one area to another needs security clearance – similar to what the world is getting used to under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and spot checks by the police.

Residence information can also be checked at any of the numerous checkpoints by the forces operating in Iraq that have access to datasets. Residence information also links to social welfare systems and a citizen’s ability to try to access healthcare and rations supplies- no matter how limited – if available at all. For welfare benefits, yet another ID card has been required – the Public Distribution System (PDS) card.

Outside the Kurdish region this information has to be reported to the local Mukhtar who will register the current address. “Anyone who resides in Baghdad without having met all residency requirements listed above is not allowed to reside in Baghdad; at checkpoints in the city or during security raids they can face a risk of arrest and detention under the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2005. ‘Based on UNHCR’s observations, the implementation of residency requirements usually becomes stricter following security incidents in Baghdad.

ISIS access to records

When ISIS seized control of Mosul, and other strongholds, in the summer of 2014, the formidable Pan-Islamist terror organisation was able to access the records of army and security personnel and began to target them along with family members and ordinary citizens. The online version of “The ISIS Files” contains full scans of documents with ordinary Iraqis’ names and personal information on them, including, in at least two cases, children…”25

Since the dislodging of ISIS from administration over those parts of Iraq formerly under its control and at an enormous cost to human life, heritage sites and urban infrastructure, secret database information linked to the Personal Status ID card system has been used by the ISF, Shi’a militia and Kurdish forces in routine screening at checkpoints, at internal boundaries and at land borders and airports in providing a basis for interrogation.26

Those that lived in places which fell under ISIS control – no matter for how short or long a period – will be likely to encounter suspicion on this basis as well as in being of the Sunni sect. They face a real risk of ill treatment during screening and interrogation as well as of disappearance, torture and extrajudicial killing. Checkpoints are very dangerous places.27

Freedom of movement?

Officialdom claims that any returnee who is afraid of the security situation in their former place of residence may seek help via the Ministry of Displacement and Migration (which has no equivalent in the Kurdistan region) or the Mukhtar, but can such a person trust the officials to help them? Much will depend on the security and family or tribal information – if any – that is already held about them. The rest may depend on interrogation. Moving about is very difficult. “According to law No 95 of 1978 (amended) Iraqis can temporarily reside for 30 days without notifying the authorities. Following this he or she must either return to their registered place of residence or notify the authorities and pay a daily penalty described as a “small sum” for each day they exceed the 30 days.”

However, in this regard, alarmingly, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) Country of Origin report, Iraq: Internal Mobility’ of February 2019 noted: Firstly, if an IDP wants to return to his/her area of origin or just wants to make a short visit to check on properties, the conditions etc. the person must first obtain permission from the local communities in the place of displacement… Secondly, the local security actors in the area of displacement must grant the IDP permission to leave. Thirdly, the local security actors on the road from the area of displacement to the area of origin must grant permission to pass through. Finally, the local security actors and the local communities, for instance, (the) head of civil administration, i.e. the mukhtars, must grant permission for the IDPs to return to the area of origin.”

And importantly: ‘The procedure to obtain permission is that the IDP’s name is checked through a security database, which contains names of known and suspected terrorist profiles. Every security actor has their own, independent security database, which means that when IDPs travel from one place to another 28 they will be checked in several different databases. In case the IDPs pass the clearance in the databases, they must register themselves as returnees and are then allowed to travel back to their area of origin.

The report also observed importantly: “In some cases, the local communities do not want certain individuals or families to return. For instance, there are specific areas of Kirkuk and Mosul where IDPs or group of IDPs are not able to return to.” In these cases, those in control at local level determine whether someone can go home or not. 29

Perhaps, for example, as with Kirkuk, their former home has been taken over as part of the new Shi’a Arabization drive of the Disputed Territories and Kurds cannot return there. In other cases, Arabs can be excluded or detained from Kurdistan.

The EASO report also cited the UNHCR in that “no prosecution of Peshmerga forces or members of the Asayish has been seen with regard to their violations of human rights…Journalist Shalaw Mohammed said that pursuance of targets within Kurdish controlled areas must be backed by a court order. Journalist Osama Al Habahbeh, however, pointed to Iraq being in a state of emergency, wherefore authorities like the Kurdish security apparatus circumvent certain rules and regulations…he said he was aware of people from the political opposition being detained, tortured and killed by the Kurdish forces.129”

Critics of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), but also of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) risk arbitrary arrest and disappearance. As with greater Iraq, demonstrators have been shot at, beaten and detained by the Kurdish security services.

The EASO report claims “The Peshmerga forces act as they please because the laws regulating them do not apply during a ‘state of emergency’…”

It continued: “The Asayish is reportedly not being subjected to external monitoring. “Three sources stated that the Asayish is linked directly to the president of the KRI, former Intelligence Chief, Masrour Barzani, another of KDP leader, Massoud Barzani’s sons.”

Masrour is also the chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council with oversight of its elite forces and chief owner of the Ster Group that consists of a number of companies and a bank30 as well as North Light Holding monopolizing the entire faulty insurance sector in Kurdistan.31

Bugging phones, pocketing the profits – corruption undermining protection

The main political players also own and control the mobile phone companies, Asiacell in Sulaimaniya and Korek in Erbil. Anyone in the KRG can be listened to. Wikileaks reported several years ago that Asiacell’s profits were divided 50:50 between three PUK politburo members and the company.

Wikileaks also observed how “Corruption has warped the growth of the entire Kurdistan economy. For example, the leading private companies in Kurdistan are all vertically integrated cross-sectoral conglomerates, e.g., Diyar Group, Eagle Group, Falcon Group, KAR Group, Nasri Group, Sandi Group, Silver Star Group and Ster Group. These conglomerates tend to have construction, import-export, logistics, real estate and security subsidiaries. All of these companies are alleged to be allied to one or more non-competing “godfathers” in the local ruling party..32

“KHRW said that not even the parliament has the power to gain insight into working methods of the Asayish.” Corruption dominates the law and undermines protection of the individual.

Journalist Osama Al Habahbeh explained that the authorities would not protect an individual in case the person had a conflict with a politician. In line with this, Human Rights Watch characterized the Kurdish court system as being under political influence and used to stifle dissent and target critical voices, including journalists…

According to UNHCR, there is very little regard of law enforcement among the local population in KRI and people do not make use of the police or the courts. UNHCR said that the courts are not seen to respond, even though, in principle, they have a number of excellent laws meeting international standards. In addition, UNHCR explained that access to the rule of law is dependent on ethnic and religious affiliation, tribe, connections, family and relatives, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to stand up for his rights by himself. According to Human Rights Watch, as regards the Asayish, both Arabs and Kurds are at risk of arbitrary detention and torture…

Tracing foes and targets can be done through political and security connections informally, with or without a bribe but generally with some expectation of a favour in return or hushing something up as in blackmail cases.

The elite of the political parties have full access to the personal status database on which everyone must register their address and therefore anyone can be found anywhere.

Kurdistan and Iraq are being run by those with vested interests – interests which are clearly in conflict. Such conditions demand a vigilant state of surveillance.