This document summarizes human rights violations, brutal in the extreme, allegedly perpetrated in the aftermath of the mass uprising which began on 1 March 1991 in several cities of southern Iraq and spread to the Kurdish regions of the north. It details widespread arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings by the Iraqi security forces of individuals suspected of involvement in the uprising. Unarmed civilians, including women and children, also suffered violations, sometimes in situations outside the context of the armed conflict. Among the cases cited here are the arrest in Najaf of Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qassem al-Kho’i, aged 95; mass executions, e.g. in the town of al-Hilla; the alleged burial alive of a group of six people and numerous cases of torture.
