Arabization

The information gathered by Human Rights Watch during its September 2002 mission clearly establishes that the Iraqi government is continuing a policy of forced expulsions of Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians from Kirkuk and other oil-producing regions. The process of forced expulsions from Kirkuk is a centrally organized, bureaucratic government campaign, involving formal documents such as the expulsion orders many victims received.

Typically, families targeted for expulsion would receive several threatening visits from security personnel or Ba`th Party officials. During those visits, the families are pressured to take one or more of the following steps: officially alter their ethnic identity by registering as Arabs instead of Kurds, Turkoman, or Assyrian, a process known as "nationality correction;" become members of the ruling Ba`th Party; and/or join one of the various militias formed by Saddam Hussein, including the so-called Army of Jerusalem (Jaysh al-Quds). Families with young men are particularly harassed.

As a result of these pressures, some families decide to depart for the Kurdish-controlled areas, knowing that they risk forced expulsion, imprisonment, and other abuse if they continue to refuse to comply with official demands. Those families who remain in Kirkuk are soon presented with a formal expulsion order. Oftentimes, a male relative is arrested at this point and held hostage by the security services until the family has arranged for departure to the Kurdish-controlled areas.

As with most Iraqi government abuses, multifarious security agencies are directly implicated. Among the most prominent agencies involved in the expulsions are the General Security Directorate (Mudiriyyat al-Amn al`Aam), headquartered in Baghdad and with centers in major cities across the country, and the internal security service of the Ba`th Party (Amn al-Hizb). Both these apparatuses directly implement the policy of forced population transfers at all its major stages, namely surveillance of targeted individuals or families, putting pressure on them to comply with official demands, threatening arrest, expulsion, or other punishment for failure to comply, earmarking or issuing expulsion orders, and seizure of property and assets. Additionally, General Security Directorate officials are involved in the arrest, interrogation, and sometimes torture of those who refuse to succumb to their pressures and, together with the police, in the detention of the head or male member of targeted families, effectively as hostages, until the expulsion process is completed. The Ba`th Party's security officials are also involved in identifying persons who failed to join the party, and exerting pressure on them to do so.⁵²

Frequently, the pressure on ethnic minority families by security officials is backed up by the mukhtar-the civilian community representative in a particular neighborhood in cities, towns, or villages. Necessarily members of the Ba`th Party, the mukhtars have intimate knowledge of the families residing within a given area and are able to report regularly to security officials on the situation of individual families, any changes in their circumstances, and any acts on their part that indicate of disloyalty to the authorities. They frequently accompany security officials on their rounds of targeted homes, and participate in exerting pressure on families to comply with official demands.

The local police in each district are also involved in the execution of orders concerning forced expulsions, such as the detention of a family member pending expulsion. They are also charged with being present at the homes of families on the day of their expulsion, to record the names of each family member, to ensure that they do not take with them prohibited articles or belongings, and to draw up a list of all other major items that are being taken. Where the families concerned are expelled to the northern Kurdish-controlled region, the police are also required to escort them to the last government-controlled checkpoint. At that point they take any documentation still remaining in the families' possession with the exception of their nationality certificates, which they are permitted to keep. The police also escort those families that are expelled to destinations in southern Iraq, handing over their expulsion papers to local officials upon arrival.

Finally, the government of Iraq has resisted efforts by the United Nations, including its main refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to facilitate the return of Iraqis displaced from the Kirkuk region. In the immediate aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war and subsequent uprisings, UNHCR and nongovernmental organizations sought to facilitate the safe return of Kurds and Turkomans who had fled in 1991 from Kirkuk. However, this focus on returning Kurds and Turkomans "ran directly counter to government plans."⁵³ Government opposition to the facilitation of returns was made even more apparent in August 1991 when the U.N. Executive Delegate requested permission from Baghdad to establish a sub-office in Kirkuk and was denied.⁵⁴ One month later, the Iraqi government refused to allow U.N. guards to accompany a convoy of 3,417 returnees to Kirkuk. ⁵⁵

Combined Pressure Tactics
Iraqi officials use a wide range of tactics and demands to pressure targeted Kurdish, Turkoman, and Assyrian families prior to forcing them to abandon their homes. These include forced change of ethnicity, forced recruitment into the Ba`th Party, forced recruitment into "volunteer" paramilitary structures, pressure on families with relatives in Kurdistan, and attempts to recruit informers. Most of the families are subjected to a range of such pressures until they either leave voluntarily out of fear or are forcibly expelled.

· The family of `Abdullah Ramadan Ma`ruf, a thirty-six-year-old Turkoman from Kirkuk, had been pressured to change their ethnicity, join the Ba`th Party, and participate in "volunteer" paramilitary forces. On an almost monthly basis, Ba`th Party officials would survey their neighborhood, visiting each home to check on who had complied with their demands to change their ethnicity to Arab. When Ma`ruf refused an additional demand that he join the Jerusalem Army, his wife related, a Ba`th Party official pressured the family into sending their fourteen- and twelve-year-old sons for military training with Saddam's Cubs. "When they asked my husband to train with Jaysh al-Quds, he refused, so then they said we will take your sons," she said. After this incident, pressure on Ma`ruf to join the Ba`th Party increased, but he refused, saying he was "independent." Ten days after his refusal, police officials came to the family home and told Ma`ruf and his family that they would be expelled within two days.

On the July 21, 2002, the day of their expulsion, the police came to their home and scrutinized the possessions the family wanted to take with them. The family was asked to choose between going to the Kurdish-controlled north or government-controlled south, and they chose to go north. The family was forced to pay a 25,000 dinar bribe at the last government checkpoint, and had their ration and residence cards confiscated.⁵⁶

· Ba`th Party officials first came to the home of Qassem `Abd al-Rahman Khadr, a Turkoman carpenter in July 2002. The officials demanded that he and his seventeen-year-old son volunteer for the Jerusalem Army. The family paid the officials 200,000 dinars in lieu of this. Soon thereafter, the same officials returned and informed the family that they would be expelled because they had refused to change their ethnicity from Turkoman to Arab. A week before the expulsion [on July 15, 2002] police officers came to their home to arrest Khadr, taking him to the al-Muthanna police station. He was only released on the day of the expulsion [on July 22, 2002], after the family paid a 20,000 dinar bribe and he agreed to sign a paper saying he had left Kirkuk "voluntarily." The family was only allowed to take clothes, blankets, and some small belongings.⁵⁷

· Fifty-year-old As`ad Karim Salah, a Kurd, was expelled from Kirkuk on June 16, 2002. Prior to his expulsion, Ba`th and security officials put constant pressure on his two sons, aged twenty and twenty-three, to join the Ba`th Party and to alter their ethnicity. The twenty-year-old son, who was studying at Mosul University, was also pressured to spy on his fellow students. When he refused, he was expelled from the university.

In March 2002 another son, twenty-three years old, fled to Kurdish-controlled territory, and the pressure on the remaining family members increased. From April to June, the visits by officials became almost constant. On June 10, Ba`th Party officials came to Salah's home a final time, demanding that he return his son to Kirkuk. Salah explained he could not do this. On June 16, the police came and took the entire family to the al-Muthanna police station in Kirkuk, again demanding the return of the son, and that the family change their ethnicity, join the Ba`th Party, and join the Jerusalem Army. When the family refused, they were immediately deported to Kurdish-controlled territory. They were only allowed to take a few small items, and had to leave their household appliances and other belongings behind.⁵⁸

· Forty-nine-year-old Muhammad Karim, a Kurd, was expelled from the al-Shorja district of Kirkuk in June 2002, together with his wife and seven children. His ordeal shows the constant pressure that many non-Arab families face:

Officials from the Amn [General Security Directorate] and the Istikhbarat [Military Intelligence] and the mukhtar [neighborhood administrator] kept coming to our house and putting pressure on us. They told me I must become a member of the Ba`th Party, and sign up for military training in Jaysh al-Quds. They also tried to recruit my son [aged eighteen] into the Jaysh al-Quds, so he fled [to Kurdish-controlled territory.] It was after that that the pressure on me increased, and when I refused to become a Ba`th Party member, they told me they were going to expel me. I had also been under pressure to correct my ethnic identity. The Ba`th Party official responsible for our district came to our house and proposed I do this. Again I refused. That is how we got expelled.⁵⁹

The family was only allowed to take their clothes and a few personal belongings, but had to leave behind all household appliances and other items of value.

· Twenty-five-year-old Salim Ismail (not his real name), a Kurd from the Rahim Awa district of Kirkuk, was first harassed by Iraqi officials in December 2001: "They told me, `You must become a Ba`thist, you must correct your identity [ethnicity], and you must participate in Jaysh al-Quds.'" He gave the officials a bribe of 19,000 dinars to leave him alone. In March 2002, the officials returned and renewed their demands, and he again bribed them. When the officials came back yet again in June 2002, they told him he had to choose between participating in Jaysh al-Quds and joining the Ba`th Party or being expelled. He chose expulsion. He was given the choice between being expelled to Arbil or Sulaimaniya in the Kurdish-controlled territories, or the Iraqi government-controlled city of al-Ramadi. He chose to be expelled to Sulaimaniya.

A few days later, agents from the General Security Directorate came to his home and registered the personal details of all the family members, the numbers of their ration cards, details of their educational qualifications, and the names of their relatives remaining behind in Kirkuk. They were told they had fifteen days to leave. On the day of the expulsion, an officer and a policeman from the Andalus police station came to their home, made a list of their possessions, and then took the family to the police station. Upon arrival, Salim Ismail had to sign a paper saying he was leaving his home "voluntarily." At the first checkpoint [Kirkuk checkpoint], he was ordered to leave behind two of the three barrels of fuel he had purchased, as well as three of the four gas cylinders, on the pretext that only one of each was allowed. At the second checkpoint, dubbed Saytarat al-Tahaddi [Defiance Checkpoint], the officials took away the family's ration cards and the police documents, including the expulsion order, but allowed them to keep their nationality certificates. The family of eleven now live in the Parda Qaraman refugee camp near Sulaimaniya.⁶⁰

· Forty-six-year-old Hamid Zein al-`Abidin Saleh, a Turkoman father of nine, worked in Kirkuk as a freelance photographer. He refused to change his ethnic identity when Ba`th Party officials came to his home. In 1999, he received a summons to join the Popular Army, but he refused to obey it.⁶¹ Soon thereafter, he was picked up by the police and sent to the Kirkuk Deportations Center [Markaz Tasfirat Kirkuk]. On June 25, 1999, he was expelled to Kurdish-controlled territory. The police took him to the al-Muthanna police station, and ordered him to sign papers saying he was leaving Kirkuk "voluntarily," threatening him with a six-month prison sentence if he refused. Before being allowed to leave, he had to pay a 50,000 dinar fine "in lieu of imprisonment," to the police. A police officer accompanied Saleh and his family to the last checkpoint, where they had to pay another 25,000 dinars to pass through quickly.⁶²

· Forty-three-year-old Salah `Uthman Hamad, a Turkoman who worked as a nurse in Kirkuk, was constantly harassed: "They used to put pressure on us to undergo military training, to join the Ba`th Party and become comrades. They used to come to our house regularly, and as we kept refusing they said we had to be expelled." Salah Hamad bribed the officials 100,000 dinars to avoid having to undergo military training, and then had to pay another 25,000 dinar bribe to avoid having to change his ethnicity to Arab. Finally, in September 1997, the mukhtar came to his home, accompanied by police officers, and informed the family of their expulsion order, which gave them three days' notice. The family, with seven children, hired a truck and left with their clothes, blankets, and some small items of furniture. They were forced to hand in their ration cards and identity cards. An Arab family that had been relocated from the south moved into their home. At the last checkpoint, police officials collected the official expulsion order the family had received.⁶³

Forced Change of Ethnicity
One of the most common Iraqi government pressure tactics is to pressure Kurdish, Turkoman, and Assyrians living in government-controlled areas to "correct" their ethnicity and register as "Arabs," a process often referred to as "nationality change." It was formally introduced in 1997, prior to carrying out a population census (which did not cover the region under Kurdish self-rule), when the government distributed "nationality correction" forms. These required members of ethnic groups residing in Kirkuk, Khaniqin, Makhmour, Sinjar, Tuz Khormatu, and other districts to relinquish their Kurdish, Turkoman, or Assyrian identities and to register officially as Arabs. Those who refused were invariably expelled from their homes.

The pressure to change ethnicity is focused in a discriminatory fashion on Kurds, Turkoman, and Assyrians-Arabs are never pressured to change their ethnicity. The process is part of a broader campaign to wipe out the non-Arab characteristics of the Kirkuk region, a campaign that also involves refusing to register non-Arab names and insisting on Arabic names for formerly Kurdish (or Turkoman and Assyrian) schools, districts, mosques, and streets.

The Iraqi government has acknowledged that it is engaging in a process of nationality changes, but claims this is a process designed to correct "erroneous" registrations dating back to the Ottoman era. In an April 2002 communication to the U.N. special rapporteur on Iraq, the Iraqi government explained that it promulgated Revolutionary Command Council Decree 199 (see above) because of "the presence of cases left over from the records of the Ottoman period ...in which Iraqi citizens have been wrongly registered ...as being of non-Arab ethnicity, and in order to provide Iraqis with the right to choose their ethnicity."⁶⁴ Iraq claims that the intent of the decree is not discriminatory because "this right is optional and not discriminatory."⁶⁵

The Iraqi government has also admitted to the practice of refusing to register newborns with "foreign names." The Iraqi government explained this practice to the special rapporteur:

Some parents give their children foreign names that are alien to the heritage of Iraqi society, thereby forcing the bearer of the name to face the astonishment and persistent and embarrassing questions of those around them as to the meaning of their socially unusual names. For this reason, a decision has been taken that names must be either Iraqi, Arab or Islamic.⁶⁶

The Iraqi government denied that this decision was discriminatory against Kurds, stating "the concept of Iraqi identity embraces the names of all religious and ethnic communities, including Kurdish, Turkoman, Christian and other names of other communities."⁶⁷ However, witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Iraqi Kurdistan consistently testified that they had been unable to register their newborns with Kurdish or other non-Arabic ethnic names.

· Twenty-five-year-old Nahro Fattah, a Kurd, fled to Kurdish-controlled territory in 1996 because of constant demands from Iraqi officials that he join the army. After he fled, his remaining relatives were constantly pressured to change their ethnic identity or leave for Kurdistan. The family twice paid bribes of 20,000 dinars and 15,000 dinars to Iraqi officials to leave them alone. On July 17, 2002, the five remaining members of Fattah's family received notification that they would be expelled from Kirkuk within ten days. The family was also notified that their home would be seized without compensation. Within days, an official came to collect the family's ration cards and residence cards. On July 27, 2002, the day of their expulsion, a police officer came to check what possessions the family was taking with them, telling them they could take only their clothes, two empty gas cylinders, and other small items.⁶⁸

· Hamid Fatah Qader, a forty-nine-year-old father of four and a Kurd, lived in the Kakayakan district of Kirkuk. On September 13, 2001, five or six officials from the General Security Directorate came to his home at about 8:00 p.m. They asked Qader for two photographs of himself and told him to complete the forms necessary to change his nationality from Kurdish to Arab, and further ordered him to become a member of the Ba`th Party. Qader refused, asking the men if they would ever change their nationality from Arab to Kurd. One of the security officials became incensed, and whipped Qader several times with a wire cable in front of his crying wife and children.

After the beating, Qader was arrested, handcuffed, and taken to the Kirkuk Deportation Center, where he was detained together with around thirty-five other Kurds, all awaiting expulsion. Qader spent fifty-one days at the detention center, and was beaten regularly:

There was a narrow walkway, and they would bring us there, one after the other, all of us. Three people would come from Military Intelligence just to beat us. They beat us with cables and fists. They would hold us by the hair and hit us with fists in our face until blood came out of our mouths. I was beaten like this many times. They accused us of belonging to [the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of] Jalal Talabani-and that we had to go [to Kurdistan].

After fifty-one days, Qader was transferred to the al-Muthanna police station. The police ordered him to sign an expulsion form, which he could not read because it was written in Arabic, and forced him to pay a 10,000 dinar bribe "for the cost of the paper." The police then accompanied him to his home, where he hired a truck for his family's journey to the Kurdish-controlled territory. The family was not allowed to take their electric appliances, which they had to sell cheaply at the market.⁶⁹

· Forty-six-year-old Nawal Nameq was expelled in 1998 together with her husband, her five children, and eight other relatives. Officials from the General Security Directorate came to their home and told them to report to the Governorate of Kirkuk. At the governorate they were told to change their ethnic identity. When they refused, they were told they would be expelled. Nawal Nameq's husband, Ramadan `Umar Khadr, was arrested at that time and kept in detention for five days, until the day of their expulsion. The family was forced to abandon their restaurant and café that provided them with income, and left with only their clothes: "We wanted to take other things, but since my husband was about to be detained again, we left quickly."⁷⁰

· In early November 1997, Hawar `Ali Sadeq (not his real name) was summoned to the Governorate of Kirkuk. He was ordered to change his ethnicity identity from Kurd to Arab. When he refused, officials told him he would be expelled to Sulaimaniya, and the police immediately confiscated his food ration cards and other identity documents. On November 27, 1997, the entire family of fourteen hired a truck and left for the Kurdish-controlled region, accompanied by an Iraqi policeman. They were only allowed to take their clothes, three gas cylinders, and two cans of oil. At the last government checkpoint, the policeman accompanying them returned their identity documents but not their ration cards. Since then, the family has lived in a mud hut in the impoverished Parda Qaraman camp.⁷¹

· Sixty-nine-year-old Yassin Saber `Abdullah used to be a farmer in the village of Djaghmagha, where he owned 500 dunums [approximately 125 acres] of farmland. During the 1980s, the Iraqi government forcibly expelled the non-Arab population of Djaghmagha and most of the other villages in the area, giving the seized agricultural land to Arab tribes from southern Iraq. `Abdullah lost all of his land without compensation, and was forced to move in with relatives in the Rahim Awa quarter of Kirkuk, doing odd jobs.

`Abdullah's three sons served in the Iraqi army. Despite this, Ba`th Party officials regularly came to visit him, even stopping him in the street several times, to pressure him to change his ethnic identity to Arab. In 1996, after he had repeatedly refused to comply, `Abdullah was arrested and kept for two weeks at the Rahim Awa police station, until he managed to pay a 20,000 dinar bribe for his freedom. In 1997, he was arrested again, and taken to the deportation center in Rahim Awa. "We were fifteen or sixteen people there, all of us about to be expelled." After a week of detention, the authorities brought `Abdullah's family to the center and immediately expelled them all to the Kurdish-controlled areas. The family was only allowed to take some clothes, blankets, and other small items.⁷²

Forced Recruitment into the Ba`th Party
Since 1968 Iraq has been ruled by a single political party, the Arab Ba`th Socialist Party. Its role in Iraqi society remains pervasive, facilitated by its own intelligence and security structures. Ba`thist officials frequently attempt to recruit Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians to join the party, the aim being multifold. Membership serves as a means through which the state strives to retain control of individuals and to monitor any anti-government activity on their part. Becoming a member is invariably followed by pressure on individuals to act as informers in their local neighborhood, their professional milieu, or other spheres. Above all, willingness to join the party serves as a test of loyalty to the government. Refusal or reluctance to join raises suspicion, resulting in the person concerned being placed under surveillance and facing innumerable obstacles and discrimination in their daily lives. In the case of ethnic minorities, it also serves as a pretext for their forced expulsion from their homes.

· Mu`tasam `Abd al-Rahman Taha, a twenty-five-year-old Kurd from Kirkuk, was forced by Ba`th Party officials to join the Jerusalem Army in July 2001, and spent two months undergoing military training at the al-Qadisiyya Garrison in Kirkuk. About three-quarters of the recruits he trained with were also Kurds. He was discharged in September 2001. On September 9, 2002, Ba`th Party officials again came to his home and demanded that he work for the party or face expulsion. He and other family members refused to comply. On the same day, the police arrested Mu`tasam Taha's brother, thirty-two-year-old `Adnan, and detained him at the al-Muthanna police station.⁷³

At the police detention facility, `Adnan Taha found himself imprisoned with five other men whose families also faced expulsion. One of the men had been in detention for twenty-two days because his family couldn't afford the bribe demanded. Two days after his arrest, `Adnan Taha's relatives paid a 100,000 dinar bribe for his release, and the family of fourteen was immediately expelled to Kurdish-controlled territory. They had to pay 75,000 dinars to hire a truck, 50,000 dinars to pass the Defiance Checkpoint, and another 25,000 to the policeman who accompanied them. Their residence and ration cards were taken away. The family owned a house in Kirkuk, and were forced to hand over the house keys before they were expelled, losing their home without compensation.⁷⁴

· Tawfiq Rahman, a Kurdish laborer from Kirkuk, is a father of seven children. Ba`th Party officials regularly attempted to force him to join the party, but he successfully avoided them repeatedly by staying away from his home and ignoring their demands that he visit the local party office. In January 2001, Ba`th Party officials and the local mukhtar came to his home early in the morning to inform him that his family was being expelled. Security officials accompanied Rahman as he went to hire a truck and loaded up his goods. He was forced to sign a "voluntary" expulsion paper, which was collected at the last government checkpoint.⁷⁵

· Tareq Nameq Shahwar, a forty-four-year-old Turkoman driver from Kirkuk, first came under pressure to become a member of the Ba`th Party in 1994, and the harassment intensified over the next two years: "They put pressure on us to join the Ba`th Party.... The party comrades used to come to our house regularly, then the police started coming. In the beginning it was once every two months, then it became more frequent. Finally, they told us they were going to expel us."

The family was expelled on February 6, 1996, one of at least fifteen families from their neighborhood expelled that month. They were given the choice of going north to the Kurdish-controlled areas or south into government-controlled areas, and were told that if they moved south, they could take all their possessions with them. So they chose to head south to al-Ramadi. A policeman accompanied them, and gave their expulsion documents to officials at the governorate building in al-Ramadi. The family moved into the Kurdish quarter of al-Ramadi, and found that most of their neighbors were also expelled families from Kirkuk: "There must have been at least three hundred families living there who were expelled from the North." The family found life in the south impossible because of regular demands that Tareq Shahwar join the Popular Army, almost constant surveillance, and their inability to find work on account of having been expelled. The family left the south in secret, for Kurdish-controlled territory.⁷⁶

Forced Recruitment into "Volunteer" Paramilitary Forces
The Iraqi government has over the years created a number of paramilitary forces, either as auxiliary support to the regular armed forces or as "elite" units-effectively private armies answerable to the political leadership. In the latter category fall Saddam's Martyrs (Fida'iyyi Saddam), and a new force reportedly created in 2002 known as Sword of the Leader (Sayf al-Qa'id). The principal auxiliary force created during the 1970s was the Popular Army (al-Jaysh al-Sha`bi) headed by Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan, purportedly a volunteer force whose purpose was to provide military support to the regular armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war.⁷⁷ Many of the Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians who were forcibly expelled from their homes during the early 1990s had been recruited into the Popular Army under pressure. A newer force, the Jerusalem Army (Jaysh al-Quds) was created in February 2001 amid much official fanfare, its declared purpose being the "liberation" of Jerusalem. Like the Popular Army, it is nominally a volunteer force. In practice, many of its recruits-including Kurds, Turkomans and Assyrians-have been pressured into enlisting. Training typically takes place over one or two months, focusing on the use of light weaponry such as Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and light artillery.

Many of the Kurdish and Turkoman men interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been forced to undergo several paramilitary training courses and were threatened with expulsion from their homes if they refused. Those who fled to the Kurdish-controlled region to avoid expulsion cited recruitment into the Jerusalem Army as one of the main reasons for their flight. They also stated that in cases where males over the age of eighteen in a given family were absent or ill, the authorities would recruit the eldest boy in lieu of an adult male, and that in some cases recruits were as young as fifteen. Boys between the age of twelve and seventeen are normally recruited into yet another force known as Saddam's Cubs (Ashbal Saddam), which also involves periodic training in light weaponry over one month during summer vacations. One fourteen-year-old Turkoman boy told Human Rights Watch that many of his classmates had undergone the training course. His mother explained that she had fled to the Kurdish-held region because she feared that her young sons would be forced into joining Saddam's Cubs.⁷⁸ Other families with young boys also cited this as a reason for their expulsion or flight.

· Thirty-two-year-old Muhammad Muhammad Khaled was first forced to join the Jerusalem Army in March 2001, when Ba`th Party officials came to his home in Khaniqin, a town south west of Kirkuk and close to the border with Iran. They ordered him to report for training. He was forced to leave his work and go with his family to a military training camp near Baghdad, where he received two months of training in light weaponry. He received 20,000 dinars a month for his family "which is barely enough to make ends meet.... Our situation was very bad."⁷⁹ After the training, he returned home in May 2001, but was then again forced in November 2001 to undergo two more months of training in the Jerusalem Army. After completing the second round of training, and desperate to escape another round, Khaled moved to Kirkuk city:

I thought I would be safe there. But in Kirkuk it was very difficult to survive. I was a barber and tried to find work, but the [Ba`th] party comrades kept harassing me. They called me a son of a dog and told me I had no chance there. And the pressure to continue to train with Jaysh al-Quds was worse in Kirkuk than in Khaniqin. My [economic] situation in Khaniqin used to be good until I had to join the Jaysh al-Quds.⁸⁰

Unable to earn a living and facing constant pressure from Iraqi officials, he decided to escape to Kurdish-controlled territory. Ba`th Party officials confiscated his ration card and personal identity cards.

Harassment and Expulsion of Families with Relatives in Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi government agents have frequently targeted for harassment ethnic minority families with relatives living in the Kurdish-controlled region. This was particularly the case when a male member of a given family had fled in order to escape forced enlistment into a paramilitary force, or was an army deserter. Pressure also increased on these families when their relatives joined Kurdish or other fighting forces, or became affiliated with one or another of the opposition groups based in the north. In some cases, the authorities put pressure on the families concerned to convince their relatives to return to government-controlled areas, and then used the failure to comply with this demand as a pretext for expulsion.

· Two of twenty-one-year-old Madiha Hamid's brothers left for the Kurdish-controlled areas to escape recruitment into the Jerusalem Army. Following their departure, Iraqi officials regularly came to Madiha's home and asked why the family had remained in Kirkuk when her brothers were in Kurdistan: "Why are you here? Your brothers are in Kurdistan," the officials would say.⁸¹ At the beginning of August 2002, the officials took away the ration cards of the family, and soon thereafter the family was presented with a formal expulsion order for Madiha, her father, her niece, and her two sisters. They were expelled from Kirkuk on September 5, 2002.⁸²

· The Turkoman family of Nihayat Muhammad Gharib came under pressure from the General Security Directorate in 2002 because her brother-in-law was living abroad:

There was no pressure on us to join the Ba`th Party or to train with the Jaysh al-Quds, or even to change our ethnic identity. It was because of my husband's brother, who has been abroad for about five years now. Security [officials] interrogated my husband about that, but we kept saying we didn't know anything about him. They told us, `In that case, you cannot remain here and you will be expelled.'

Gharib's family decided to flee before they faced further harassment or a formal expulsion order, taking only their clothes with them.⁸³

· Barzan Karim Kakel, a thirty-seven-year-old Kurdish construction worker from Kirkuk, and father to seven children, fled to Kurdish-controlled territory in late August 2002. His brother had already fled there earlier that year. Barzan had not been harassed prior to that, but after his brother's departure, Ba`th Party officials began coming regularly to his house, telling him he had to join the party, change his ethnicity to Arab, and join the Jerusalem Army. After six months of harassment, he fled to Arbil with his family. Although he lived in poverty in a camp for displaced persons, he insisted on stressing to Human Rights Watch that he preferred life in the camp: "I don't have to be afraid of anyone, I am free here and my life is secure."⁸⁴

· Jalal Sharif Karim is a sixty-six-year-old cobbler from the town of Tuz Khormatu. Two of his sons were living in Kurdish-controlled territory, working as Pesh Merga fighters.⁸⁵ Beginning in April 2002, security officials from the General Security Directorate began coming to his workplace, asking questions about his two sons. Ba`th Party officials also came regularly, urging him to change his ethnic identity, but he argued back: "I told them I am a Kurd, and even if I become king, I will always remain a Kurd." On June 10, Jalal was arrested together with his twenty-year-old son Kamal, and held for eight days at the Tuz Khormatu police station, where they were repeatedly questioned and threatened with long prison sentences and hanging, but they were not beaten. On June 18, they were released after paying a 100,000 dinar bribe. The family left immediately for Kurdish-controlled territory, arriving in the desolate Parda Qaraman displaced persons camp near Sulaimaniya on June 21, 2002. Before leaving, Jalal managed to sell his house to his Turkoman neighbors, who were told by the Iraqi authorities that they would have to adopt Arab names if they wanted to register the deeds of the house in their own names.⁸⁶

· Haja Mahmoud Rashid, a fifty-six-year-old Turkoman widow, was living in Kirkuk but had two sons who left for Kurdish-controlled territory in the mid-1990s, one to escape harassment and another to join the Kurdish Pesh Merga forces. In May 2002, security personnel and Ba`th Party officials came to her house, demanding that she bring her son who had joined the Pesh Merga to them or face expulsion. Haja Rashid refused, and was expelled on June 10, 2002. On the day of her expulsion, police officials came to make sure she was not taking any electrical or other household appliances with her, allowing her only to pack some clothes, blankets, and small personal items. The police accompanied the family to the last government checkpoint, where they took away their ration cards, residence cards, and expulsion papers.⁸⁷

· Amin Najmuddin Muhammad, a sixteen-year-old Kurdish student from Kirkuk, had a brother who fled Kirkuk to Kurdish-controlled territory and joined the Pesh Merga. After his brother fled, the family began receiving almost daily visits from Ba`th Party and security officials, demanding that they bring their brother back to Kirkuk. The officials also demanded that the family join the Ba`th Party and enlist in the Jerusalem Army.

In May 2001, security officials came to the home and arrested Amin's father, telling the family they were being expelled from Kirkuk and that they should prepare for their departure:

They kept my father for four or five days. During this time, we had to prepare everything in our house. We couldn't take all of our possessions. We had to leave behind our appliances such as our refrigerator-they prohibited us from taking such things. We signed the expulsion paper, which was taken from us at the last checkpoint.⁸⁸

· Fifty-one-year-old Ahmad Hamid, a Turkoman, was deported from Kirkuk in 1992. His brother had fled Iraq in 1982 to escape army service, traveling through Iran and Syria before obtaining refugee status in Sweden. In 1992, Iraqi security officials detained Ahmad Hamid, two other brothers and their father, and gave them the choice between expulsion to Kurdish-controlled territory or going south to al-Ramadi. The family was expelled because of the brother's desertion from the army and his residence abroad.

The family chose to go to al-Ramadi because they were allowed to take some of their belongings with them. When they arrived in al-Ramadi, they were housed in a crowded abandoned school with about fifty other families, all Kurds and Turkmen who had been expelled from Kirkuk. The families lived in crowded conditions, with two or three families sharing one room. After six months, the family fled to Kurdish-controlled territory, taking advantage of heavy rain to hide in the back of a truck and pass through the many checkpoints.⁸⁹

Recruitment of Informers
At times, Iraqi government agents also attempt to coerce Kurds and other non-Arabs into becoming informers for the various security or intelligence apparatuses, or for the Ba`th Party, focusing particular attention on those who have relatives living in the Kurdish-controlled region. When those who are recruited to spy on their families refuse to cooperate, they face instant expulsion. Others face trumped-up charges of espionage or are accused of involvement in opposition activities, and face torture and abuse before being expelled.

· Thirty-four-year-old `Ali Karim Muhammad Rashid's brother, a mathematics professor, was expelled from Kirkuk in 1999 when he refused to change his ethnicity and became a teacher in the Kurdish-controlled town of Derbendikhan. In May 2001, `Ali Karim was summoned to the offices of the General Security Directorate in al-Karama and ordered to bring his brother to the Directorate. `Ali Karim told Human Rights Watch that he was tortured by being suspended from a ceiling fan with his hands tied behind his back, a common torture technique in Iraq. He was finally released eight hours later when he agreed to pay the officials a 310,000 dinar bribe. A month later he was again summoned by officials and told to convince his brother to work for them as a spy. He had to pay a 250,000 dinar bribe to secure his release.

Soon thereafter, three agents from the General Security Directorate came to `Ali Karim's home and threatened to give his father fifty lashes unless `Ali Karim agreed to convince his brother to work as a spy. `Ali Karim agreed to travel to the Kurdish-controlled areas to visit his brother and was advised by Kurdish security officials to "play along." Two weeks after he returned, he was contacted by other officials, this time from the mukhabarat (intelligence service), who forced him to undergo a week's training in the use of explosives as a prelude to working for them.

In November 2001, `Ali Karim was again summoned to the General Security Directorate. He was asked to produce the deeds to his home, and told that he faced the choice of working as a spy or being expelled. The next morning, unwilling to work as a spy, he took his family to safety to a relative in al-Qadisiyya, and he himself fled to the Kurdish-controlled region on November 3, 2001. Iraqi officials tracked down his family and expelled them on November 11, 2001. At the final checkpoint before entering Kurdish-controlled territory, the family was forced to sign a form stating that they had left "voluntarily."⁹⁰

Re-allocation of Farm Land to Arab Families
In addition to the pressure tactics used against non-Arab families living in and around Kirkuk to leave their homes, the Iraqi government has forcefully ejected large non-Arab farm communities in the province, seizing their property without prior notice or compensation and leaving them destitute. Entire villages of non-Arab farmers have often been forcibly vacated en masse, in contrast with the more individualized pressure tactics used on urban dwellers. Many of those who find themselves internally displaced to the Kurdish-controlled region today were effectively subjected twice to forcible transfer. Expelled from their rural homes in the first instance, such families headed for Kirkuk city and other urban centers where, at best, they were able to find temporary shelter with relatives. Formerly relatively affluent landowners in the countryside, they found themselves eking out a living as manual laborers in the city. Years later, as the government's "Arabization" policy increasingly focused on urban centers, they were forcibly expelled once again, this time to the Kurdish-controlled region. Some of the more valuable seized properties were presented as "gifts" to senior Ba`th Party and other officials in return for services rendered to the state, but most were distributed to Arab tribal families brought in from southern Iraq.

The Iraqi government, in response to a query from the U.N. special rapporteur on Iraq, stated that a process of land reform was underway in northern Iraq. The government attempted to cast this process as necessary to "make best possible use of land suitable for agriculture," and claimed that the land was distributed to "all farmers willing to exploit it for agricultural purposes, without regard to their ethnic affiliation."⁹¹ In fact, the Iraqi policy is aimed at removing Kurdish and other non-Arab farm communities and replacing them with Arab farmers.

· Hussain Saleh Amin, a thirty-eight-year-old Kurd, was a farmer who owned about eighty dunums [twenty acres] of land in the town of Makhmour, located mid-way between Mosul and Kirkuk. In late 2000, he came home from a day's work in his fields to find that all of his belongings had been thrown out of his home. The head of the Makhmour municipality informed him that his farm was being seized, and that his family was being expelled to Kurdish-controlled territory. He left the next day for Arbil, only allowed to take his clothes with him. An Arab family took possession of the farm.⁹²

⁵² According to testimony obtained by Human Rights Watch from the victims of forced expulsions, other state agencies have also been involved in implementing this policy, albeit to a lesser degree. These agencies include Military Intelligence (al-Istikhbarat al-`Askariyya). This appears to be largely in cases involving victims of expulsion who have relatives serving in the fighting forces (Pesh Merga) of Kurdish opposition groups.

⁵³ See Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London & New York: I.B. Taurus, 1999), p. 40.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Ibid, p. 40-41.

⁵⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with Nawal Nouri, Sulaimaniya province, September 20, 2002; Human Rights Watch interview with `Abdullah Ramadan Ma'ruf, Sulaimaniya province, September 20, 2002.

⁵⁷ Human Rights Watch interview with Nermine Zein al-`Abidin Saleh, Arbil province, September 17, 2002.

⁵⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with As`ad Karim Salah, Arbil province, September 15, 2002.

⁵⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad Karim, Arbil province, September 13, 2002.

⁶⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with Salim Ismail, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002. The witness requested anonymity, and Salim Ismail is a pseudonym.

⁶¹ The Popular Army is a paramilitary force that was created in the early 1970s.

⁶² Human Rights Watch interview with Hamid Zein al-`Abidin Saleh, Arbil province, September 17, 2002.

⁶³ Human Rights Watch with Salah `Uthman Hamad, Arbil province, September 16, 2002.

⁶⁴ Note verbale dated April 19, 2002, from the Permanent Mission of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva regarding the decree providing for a change of ethnicity.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Note verbale dated April 19, 2002, from the Permanent Mission of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva regarding choices of names for newborn infants.

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with Nahro Fattah, Arbil province, September 13, 2002.

⁶⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with Hamid Fatah Qader, Sulaimaniya province, September 15, 2002.

⁷⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with Nawal Nameq, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁷¹ Human Rights Watch interview with Maliha `Ali Sadeq, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁷² Human Rights Watch interview with Yassin Saber `Abdullah, Arbil province, September 13, 2002.

⁷³ Human Rights Watch interview with Mu'tasam `Abd al-Rahman Taha, Arbil province, September 13, 2002.

⁷⁴ Human Rights Watch interview with `Adnan Rahman Taha, Arbil province, September 13, 2002; Human Rights Watch interview with `Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Taha, Arbil province, September 13, 2002.

⁷⁵ Human Rights Watch interview with Tawfik Rahman, Arbil province, September 15, 2002.

⁷⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with Halima Sa'dun Majid al-Wandawi, Sulaimaniya province, September 20, 2002.

⁷⁷ Over time recruitment into the Popular Army became increasingly obligatory. A penal code was promulgated for its members, which provided the death penalty for desertion.

⁷⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with Nawal Nouri and her son Shalaw, Sulaimaniya province, September 20, 2002.

⁷⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad Muhammad Khaled, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ Human Rights Watch interview with Madiha Hamid, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Human Rights Watch interview with Nihayat Muhammad Gharib, Arbil province, September 16, 2002.

⁸⁴ Human Rights Watch interview with Barzan Karim Kakel, Arbil province, September 15, 2002.

⁸⁵ Pesh Merga-in Kurdish "those who face death"-is the term Kurds use to refer to those who have taken up arms against the central government, namely the militias of the various Kurdish parties.

⁸⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with Jalal Sharif Karim, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁸⁷ Human Rights Watch interview with Haja Mahmoud Rashid, Arbil province, September 16, 2002.

⁸⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with Amin Najmuddin Muhammad, Arbil province, September 14, 2002.

⁸⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with Ahmad Hamid, Sulaimaniya province, September 11, 2002.

⁹⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Karim Muhammad Rashid, Sulaimaniya province, September 9, 2002.

⁹¹ Note Verbale dated April 17, 2002 from the Permanent Mission of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva on the issue of exploitation of agricultural land in northern Iraq.

⁹² Human Rights Watch interview with Hussain Saleh Amin, Arbil Province, September 13, 2002.