PM:04:35:25/02/2022
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SULAIMANI — Human Rights Watch said on Thursday (February
24) an Iraqi court’s decision to launch charges against a senior officer
accused of serious human rights abuses against protestors was "an important first
step.”
The Nasiriyah Investigation Court began criminal
proceedings against Lt. Col. Omar Nazar on Tuesday. Nazar is accused of involvement
in the killings of protestors and violently suppressing dissent during the
October protest movement in 2019. He was arrested on February 11.
Nazar, a member of the Interior Ministry’s
Emergency Response Division (ERD), had previously faced serious accusations over
videos and photos that Kurdish photojournalist Ali Arkady published in 2017 while
he was embedded with the team during the battles to regain Fallujah and Mosul
from the Islamic State (ISIS).
The footage appeared to show the ERD and Nazar
committing acts of torture against detainees, HRW said, which stated Nazar has remained
in his position in the ERD until now.
"This arrest is an important first step toward
accountability, but arrests for mass killings of protestors and other serious human
rights abuses shouldn’t stop here,” HRW noted.
(NRT Digital Media)