15.12.2004 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Banned Arab Baath Socialist Party on the first anniversary of Hussein's arrest ("original document (English)") [ID 9948]

"(Addustour) ­ The banned Arab Baath Socialist Party said its Secretary General Saddam Hussein was the mastermind of "the armed resistance against the occupiers." The Party pledged in announcement on the first anniversary of Hussein's arrest to continue the fight until the occupation is gone. "The resistance now, as Saddam Hussein wanted, is going through a people's war stage to liberate Iraq", the announcement said.

(Addustour is an independent daily published by former journalist Basim al­Sheikh.)"

Document(s): original document (English)

10.12.2004 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Regional conference of the dissolved Baath Party in Syria ("original document (English)") [ID 9949]

"(Addustour, 07 Dec 04) ­ News about decisions of the regional conference of the dissolved Baath Party in Syria is hard evidence that Baathist leaders are involved in the hardship of the Iraqi people. They said they could stop violence in Iraq in six hours if the Iraqi government accepted their participation in the political process. This is an implied confession they are behind all the killings and lack of services. Baathists are not fighting because they love Iraq or hate America. They fight to rise to power again. Today they openly declare they are ready to stop their crimes and agree with America just to regain what they lost. This conference is the knife with which Baathists' hopes were slaughtered because it revealed their truth. (Addustour is an independent daily published by former journalist Basim al­Sheikh.)"

Document(s): original document (English)

18.03.2004 - Source: Amnesty International

Accountability for past violations ("Printer friendly") [ID 10089]

Full report on Background, Killings of civilians, Killings by Coalition Forces, Killings by armed individuals, Administration of justice, Torture and ill-treatment, House demolitions and searches, Victims of lawlessness, Violence against women, Accountability for past violations.

Document(s): Printer friendly

18.03.2004 - Source: Amnesty International

Accountability for past violations ("original document") [ID 10089]

Full report on Background, Killings of civilians, Killings by Coalition Forces, Killings by armed individuals, Administration of justice, Torture and ill-treatment, House demolitions and searches, Victims of lawlessness, Violence against women, Accountability for past violations.

Document(s): original document

28.01.2004 - Source:

FAZ: Basra: Lists with undesirabel persons ("original source") [ID 10082]

Supporter of the Baath-regime in danger to become target or radical Shia militias

Document(s): original source

13.01.2004 - Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Baath cadres killed by unknown people ("original document (German)") [ID 10083]

A Dozen of Baath cadres killed around Mahawil. People say that as long as their is not government which implements justice, people have to do it on their own.

Document(s): original document (German)

06.01.2004 - Source:

University of Baghdad: De-Baathification, Dismissal and assassination of professors ("original source: International Herald Tribune") [ID 10084]

"(...) University of Baghdad (...) on campus, a red ribbon cordons off a wide patch of ground where mines are believed to have been planted by Republican Guard soldiers when they used the university as a staging area last spring.

A sign in a central building warns students in English: "It is prohibited to carry arms in the university. Kindly hand it to the reception office."

Newfound political and religious freedoms have flowered across the campus, with fliers touting the edicts of prominent Shiite clerics adorning walls once decorated with slogans praising Saddam. The faculty has scrapped the propaganda-based curriculum dictated by the Baath Party. Fifteen student unions, representing a range of ethnic and religious groups, have sprung up to replace the Baathist student league. Women wear tight sweaters and miniskirts, and student romances flourish. Not all the changes are welcome, though.

The "de-Baathification" program put in motion by American officials - intended to remove senior Baath Party officials from all levels of society - has led to the dismissal of 182 professors here, resulting in a knowledge gap, administrators say. Several former Baathist teachers have been assassinated.

A student union sponsored by prominent Shiite religious schools is growing powerful, leading some students to fear that it will impose hard-line religious practices on the campus.

Administrators also complain about resources. The $500,000 the old government established for university expenses has been frozen, said a former president. Some months, the university has had as little as $25,000 from the Education Ministry to operate 35 colleges for 85,000 students. Pay for professors has shrunk, and the library cannot buy books.

There is not enough dormitory space for the 5,000 students who need housing, administrators say, because the American military has occupied three-quarters of the space and pays no rent. "The first thing that is different from the past regime is the freedom, the freedom that the students and staff members and employees have again," said Mosa Jwad Aziz al-Mosawi, the university's president and an engineering faculty member. "But now we have urgent things that need attention." When the school year began in September, 50 percent more freshmen than usual flooded the campus. Tuition is free, and administrators did not want to turn students away in the middle of a bleak job market. At the same time, the university was forced to replace the fired professors with recent graduates, returning exiles or retirees. Mosawi said all the fired teachers, with the backing of the university, have applied to the Coalition Provisional Authority for exceptions from the nationwide purge of Baathists. "We know that some of them were very good, and we need them," Mosawi said. "We have nominated all of them, but we put in a clause saying the university is not responsible for any crimes or bad things." (...)

In the political science department, 65 of 70 teachers were party members. Of those, six were considered senior enough to be fired. (...) Several have been killed, off campus, in crimes that their colleagues and police officials consider politically motivated. One, Muhammad al-Rawi, the last university president under Saddam, was shot dead in a medical clinic that he had run. On campus, though, there is no hiding the animosity that many students and teachers feel toward Saddam, and for the way things were during his reign. They describe being regularly ordered from class to perform military drills and having to endure two-hour "national education" lectures that touted Baathist triumphs.

(...) Abdul-Jabar's student union is the largest and most powerful of the 15 that have sprung up since last spring. Abdul-Jabar said his union was open to all students, though it is mostly Shiite and is at least partly funded by a group of prominent Shiite religious schools. The Shiite union claimed the old headquarters of the Baathist student union shortly after the war. Some former Baathist students have reunited into a union based out of the physical education department, Abdul-Jabar said, and members of the two groups have gotten into fistfights.

In the early summer, Moktadr al-Sadr, the son of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, a leading Shiite cleric, mobilized his followers to take over student unions at universities across the country. But the Shiite unions have not been able to sweep away the other student groups - and other ways of thinking - that have blossomed after the fall of Saddam. "They've been putting up pictures of Sadr, and we've been taking them down," said Lina Aboosi, a third-year architecture student. "We're not opposing these things because they're religious. But this is a university, not a mosque.""

Document(s): original source: International Herald Tribune

18.12.2003 - Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Political parties acting as secret police to identify former Baathists ("original document (German)") [ID 10085]

Political parties in the south assisting Iraqi security forces to identify former Baathists und members of the regime. They claim to precent attacks successfully.

Document(s): original document (German)

25.09.2003 - Source: BBC News

Former Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed granted immunity from prosecution following his surrender to US forces ("Saddam minister granted immunity") [#16264],  [ID 10090]

"Mr Ahmed - number 27 on the Americans' list of most wanted former Iraqi officials - gave himself up in the northern city of Mosul last Friday. White House officials say they have high hopes he will provide significant information on Iraq's alleged weapons programmes."

Document(s): Open document

09.2003 - Source: Human Rights Watch

Ensuring Justice for Iraq: Evidence Preservation and Fair Trials ("Human Rights Watch: Ensuring Justice for Iraq: Evidence Preservation and Fair Trials") [ID 10091]

"For years, Human Rights Watch has advocated accountability for the past crimes of the Iraqi leadership. During Ba'ath Party rule, that leadership perpetrated crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, "disappearances," and summary and arbitrary executions. In the genocidal 1988 "Anfal" campaign, we estimate more than 100,000 Kurds, mostly men and boys, were trucked to remote sites and executed. In the 1980s, the Iraqi government forcefully expelled over half a million Shi'a to Iran after separating out and imprisoning an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Shi'a men and boys, most of whom remain unaccounted for. Since the late 1970s, at least 290,000 people were "disappeared" in Iraq."

Document(s): Human Rights Watch: Ensuring Justice for Iraq: Evidence Preservation and Fair Trials

20.06.2003 - Source: BBC News

Members of Iraq's former ruling Baath party became target of revenge attacks in the town of Kut/ up to 30 houses belonging to party officials were systematically demolished ("Revenge attacks target former regime") [#13701],  [ID 10086]

Document(s): Open document

17.06.2003 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Basra: former officers of the Baath party are being killed by unknown gunmen ("Private Justice") [#13612],  [ID 10087]

Document(s): Open document

17.06.2003 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Kurdish region: Kurdish official in Baath party accused of a triple murder and arrested by Kurdish police; the case has become a test case for post-Saddam justice ("Prosecuting the Ba'ath") [#13611],  [ID 10092]

"The trial could become a test case for the Kurdish region. Many believe that if Salih is convicted and sentenced, it will act as a deterrent to anyone thinking of taking justice into their own hands."

Document(s): Open document

29.05.2003 - Source: Human Rights Watch

mass graves at al-Mahawil: Accountability for the Mass Murder ("The Mass Graves of al-Mahawil: The Truth Uncovered") [#13126],  [ID 10093]

Document(s): Open document

21.05.2003 - Source: Human Rights First (formerly Lawyers Committee for Human Rights)

Accountability for past abuses in Iraq: Call on Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities ("Lawyers Committee for Human Rights - LCHR: Accountability for past abuses in Iraq: LCHR Calls on Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities") [ID 10094]

Document(s): Lawyers Committee for Human Rights - LCHR: Accountability for past abuses in Iraq: LCHR Calls on Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities

20.05.2003 - Source: Washington Post

Revenge killings of former members of the ruling Baath Party in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala and Basra reported ("Iraqis Killing Former Baath Party Members") [#12852],  [ID 10088]

Document(s): Open document