Human Rights Watch Asks U.N. Security Council To Tell U.S. To End Illegal Detention Of Iraqis

April 28, 2008 8:12 a.m. EST

(AHN) - Human Rights Watch has asked the United Nations Security Council to address concerns about the allegedly illegal detention of individuals in Iraq. It says that Iraqis are being illegally detained by the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF).

In an April 25 letter to the Security Council, HRW said that the United States has improperly used language in Security Council resolutions to justify detaining Iraqis. It said the MNF is holding thousands of detainees in Iraq without judicial review of their cases, as required by international human rights law, according to a copy of the letter posted on HRW's website.

HRW said in a statement Monday that the U.S. is improperly using Security Council Resolutions 1546, 1637 and 1723, which allows locking up Iraqis "for imperative reasons of security."

But the U.S. is improperly using the language of those resolutions to justify its holding detainees without any judicial review by acting as if the law that governed its actions was the Fourth Geneva Convention that controls how civilians are treated during international armed conflicts. But the international conflict is over, HRW said.

At the end of June 2004, the Bush administration succeeded at getting the Security Council to declare that the U.S. occupation of Iraq had ended. The end of the occupation means that international human rights standards - including judicial review - apply, HRW officials said.

"The Security Council should insist that the United States abide by international law for persons detained," Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at HRW said in the statement posted on the Relief Web site. "The Bush administration pushed the Security Council to declare that the US-led occupation of Iraq had ended in June 2004, and the end of occupation means that international human rights standards apply - judicial review, access to legal counsel and family members, and a fair trial."

The MNF was holding 24,514 detainees at the end of 2007, according to figures from the U.N. Assistance Mission, HRW stated in its letter.