1.Treatment of Shi'ites by the government, or treatment of others who do not cooperate with the Baath Party;2.Department of State and Amnesty International documents for background information on Iraq. [IRQ4007]

1.

After the Ba'ath Party came to power in 1968, it advocated increased secularism and allegedly interfered with religious processions. [ U. Zaher, "The Opposition" in Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction?, by the Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI), (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986), p. 165.] The Shi'i clergy began to organize opposition to the government to combat the weakening of their authority with the formation of the Da'wa party in 1968-69. Following major demonstrations against the regime in 1977, "eight Shi'i dignitaries, five clergy and three laymen, were sentenced to death and executed". [ Ibid.] In October 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini (who was in exile in Iraq) was expelled to Iran and, according to U. Zaher (Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction?), "early in 1980, after a number of grenade attacks in Baghdad blamed on the Da'wa Party, tens of thousands of people were expelled to Iran, in brutal conditions, under the pretext that they were of Iranian origin". [ Ibid., p. 166.] The mass deportation of Iraqis of Iranian descent is also mentioned in Iran and Iraq at War, (Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, p. 291). According to Chubin, an assassination attempt on the deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, allegedly by an Iraqi of Iranian origin, led to the execution of Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr and the deportation of thousands of Shi'a from Najaf, Karbala, and Al-Thawra, as well as to the initiation of a campaign "to expel from Iraq any Iraqi who had even the remotest connection with Iran, by birth, marriage or name". [ Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War, (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1988), p. 27.] Shortly thereafter, the Revolution Command Council made membership in the Da'wa Party punishable by death. [ Ibid.]

A newsletter published by Amnesty International in 1980 reported 257 alleged executions by the Iraqi government in 1978 and 1979. Among the victims were Kurds, Shi'a Muslims and members of the armed forces. [ Amnesty International, Newsletter, July 1980, Vol. X, No. 7.]
2.

Please refer to the following attachments:
-

Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction?, London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986, pp. 156-164;
-

Ofra Bengio, "Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq", Middle East Studies, 21 (1), January 1985;
-

Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1989, New York: Amnesty International Publications, 1989;
-

Henry Degenhardt, Revolutionary and Dissident Movements, London: Longman Group UK Ltd., 1988;
-

Niall MacDermot, ed., "Human Rights in Iraq", For the Rule of Law: The Review, International Commission of Jurists, No. 41, December 1988;
-

Alan Day and H. Degenhardt, Political Parties of the World, Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984;
-

U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1988, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1989;
-

Amnesty International, Torture in the Eighties, London: Amnesty International Publications, 1984;
-

Amnesty International, Report on Torture, London: Duckworth in association with Amnesty International Publications, 1975;
-

George E. Delury, ed., World Encyclopedia of Political Systems & Parties, New York: Facts on File Publications, 1987;