Middle East Watch

New Haven. 1990. Yale University Press. 1st Printing. Very Good in Dustjacket . 0300049595. hardcover. keywords: Iraq Politics History. FROM THE PUBLISHER - The government of Iraq is one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in power today, denying its citizens virtually all basic rights and ruthlessly suppressing even the smallest gestures of dissent. This book, which documents the violations of human rights in Iraq, is a report from Middle East Watch, a division of Human Rights Watch, which monitors violations of human rights around the world, It is the first in an important new series of books to be published jointly by Human Rights Watch and Yale University Press. This timely book discusses the Situation in Iraq since the Booth Socialist Party came to power in 1968. Written in a chillingly dispassionate style, it describes how the Booth regime subjects Iraqi citizens to forced relocation and deportation, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, ‘disappearance,' and summary political execution. Middle East Watch reveals the methods used by the Iraqi government to impose its rule: a monolithic party organization, a pervasive system of informants, and secret police agencies that are empowered to arrest, detain without trial, torture, and kill. The book also examines the government's treatment of Iraq's Kurdish minority, relating that after using chemical weapons to crush a Kurdish insurgency in 1987 and 1988, the government is now engaged in a forced relocation program of such proportions that it threatens Kurdish ethnic identity and cultural survival. Middle East Watch documents the extraordinary measures taken by the Iraqi government to prevent word of its abysmal human rights record from spreading to the international community. Iraqi citizens who speak out on human rights are severely punished, and even Iraqi emigres fear violence at the hands of Iraq's overseas security operatives. For several years no international human rights organization has been allowed into Iraq to investigate reports of abuses. Nevertheless, Middle East Watch has mounted an investigation by interviewing scores of EmigrEs, diplomats, journalists, and scholars and by gaining access to extensive written documentation, including Iraqi government texts. inventory #14993 ISBN: 0300049595.