UNAMI’s 14th six monthly Human Rights Report for Iraq was issued on 29 April 2009 covering the period from 1 July 2008 to end December 2008. The report notes that during that period:

• Iraq signed into law the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading treatment or Punishment;
• The law on the Independent High Commission for Human Rights was passed by the Council of Representatives;
• The security situation had improved;
• However targeted killings of security forces, high ranking officials and civil servants, religious and political leaders, professionals such as journalists, educators, doctors, judges and lawyers and other civilian deaths continued at a high rate as did criminal abductions for ransom;
• Attacks against minorities continued and 12,000 Christians were displaced from Mosul in October 2009;
• Violence against women including ‘honour crimes’ remained a serious problem;
• Most perpetrators of human rights abuses were not brought to justice;
• Over 44,000 individuals remained detained in Federal IRaqi, Kurdish or MNFI authority;
• The General Amnesty Law of 27 February 2008 has not alleviated the crowded situation in prisons and places of detention;
• 120 people had received a sentence of the death penalty [12 people were hanged on Sunday 3 May 2009, the first such executions in 18 months]