During the rule of the Baath regime, the UN Commission on Human Rights repeatedly condemned "the systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror."
The following list of suggestions for further reading comprises books, reports and studies that highlight some of the human rights violations and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the former Iraqi regime. The views expressed in these documents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kirkuk Center for Torture Victims.
 |
Chris Kutschera (ed.) The first attempt at charting the crimes committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, with contributions by 23 authors from Europe, the Middle East and North America. Contains a preface on "Hearing the Victims" written by Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders and currently French Minister of Foreign Affairs (read an English translation here). |
 |
UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights Between 1994 and 2003, the UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights produced several reports on the situation of human rights in Iraq, which are available here. |
 |
Human Rights Watch Reconstructs the history of the Anfal Campaign and places it in the context of Iraqi politics. Printed by Yale University Press; an earlier online version is available here. |
 |
Human Rights Watch In 1992 and 1993, eighteen tons of official Iraqi state documents captured by Kurdish parties in the March 1991 uprising arrived in the United States for safekeeping. They were analyzed by Middle East Watch with support from Medico International. The report can be read here. |
 |
David McDowall This comprehensive chronicle of Kurdistan and its people is a revised and updated edition of David McDowall’s acclaimed exploration of recent events in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Praised as »the best single narrative history of the Kurds« (Washington Post) and as a »work of impressive traditional scholarship ... an extraordinary account« (New York Times). |
 |
Michael J. Kelly Discusses the crime of genocide and the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. With a foreword by Bishop Desmond Tutu. |
 |
Michael J. Kelly »Saddam Hussein's execution for his crimes against Iraq's Shi'a not only brought an end to his reign of oppression, but also to the justice that was to be served to the Iraqi Kurds.« Foreword by Ra'id Juhi al Saedi, former Chief Investigative Judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal. |
 |
Kanan Makiya Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya (co-founder of the Iraq Memory Foundation and currently Professor of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University) confronts the broad realities of tyranny in the Middle East and sharply criticizes Arab intellectuals' silence on the repression carried out against their own people. |
 |
Israel Charny, William S. Parsons, and Samuel Totten (eds.) »Time and again, throughout the 20th Century, various groups of people-such as the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, the Kurds in Northern Iraq, the Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, and the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia-have been targeted for elimination for various reasons (extremist ideology, ethnic animosity, and a diabolical regard for human life).« |
