Iraq (No. 3)

EDM number 1535 in 1997-98, proposed by Ann Clwyd on 09/07/1998.

That this House notes with grave concern the violations of human rights committed recently by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, documented in the report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel, and, in his July statement, notes the recent assassinations of two internationally respected religious scholars from Najaf, Iraq, which he believes may be part of an organised attack by Iraqi officials on the independent leadership of the country's Shi'a community; notes the continued mass executions of political prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib and Radwaniya prisons, and the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kurdistan where hundreds of Kurdish families have been forcefully deported from Kirkuk city; is alarmed about new information concerning hundreds of Fayli Kurds and other Iraqi citizens, who were detained in the early 1980's, and have since been found alive in underground dungeons of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison; is appalled to hear that around 1000 of these detainees were used as guinea pigs in experiments to develop internationally prohibited weapons; views these abhorrent crimes as further proof of Saddam's continuing challenge to the world community and disregard for basic human rights; and calls upon the Government to act within the United Nations Security Council to stop this violation of human rights in Iraq, and further to ensure implementation of the Rapporteur's recommendations to send human rights monitors into Iraq, an immediate release of all political prisoners and to press the Iraqi Government to stop the ethnic cleansing and mass executions of political prisoners.

This motion has been signed by a total of 36 MPs.