Human Rights in Iraq

Were the contents of this book confined to the subject indicated in the title, it would be very short indeed. Every single human right is regularly and systematically abused in Iraq, with only one slight exception, that of freedom of religion. The details often make for grisly reading but the presentation is sharp and the overall impact is compelling. The study's author, David A. Korn, has both read widely and engaged in some investigative reporting of his own. In effect, Human Rights in Iraq represents the prose counterpart to Samir al-Khalil's poetry in Republic of Fear (reviewed in ORBIS, Fall 1989, pp. 622-23).

Despite the fact that the Baghdad regime is (in the words of a high-ranking State Department official) "possibly the worst violator of human rights anywhere in the world today," the U.S. government did notoriously little on this score before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. That event and this study should mark a new era, however.

More generally, the establishment of Middle East Watch, one of the five Watch Committees on Human Rights, confirms that Arab countries are increasingly being viewed through the same humanitarian prism as the rest of the world; this marks a very healthy trend. The sooner we see companion volumes on Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the better.

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