GENEVA, April 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights on
Wednesday strongly condemned Iraq for its "all-pervasive repression" and "widespread
terror." The 53-member state forum, holding its annual six-week session, adopted a
European Union (EU) resolution which also extended by one year the mandate of its special
independent investigator for Iraq, Cypriot diplomat Andreas Mavrommatis. Mavrommatis
told the forum in a report last month that he had continued to receive accounts of alleged
arbitrary executions and torture of detainees in the past year. The EU resolution was
approved by a vote of 30 states in

favour and three against with 19 abstentions.

"The resolution is therefore adopted," chairman Leandro Despouy announced after the
public roll-call vote in Geneva.

The United States, Britain and France -- Gulf War allies -- voted in favour of the EU text.
The other two permanent Security Council members, China and Russia, abstained. Saudi
Arabia voted in favour of the resolution, while Qatar and Syria abstained, expressing their
concern over sanctions against Iraq which they said were harming innocent civilians. Libya
and Algeria voted against the EU text. Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf
addressed the Commission last week and condemned the United States and Britain for their
continued air raids on his sanctions-hit country.

The EU resolution "strongly condemns the systematic, widespread and extremely grave
violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq,
resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based
discrimination and widespread terror."

It denounced Iraq's repression of basic freedoms including those of thought, expression,
information, association and assembly "through fear of arrest, imprisonment, execution,
expulsion, house demolition and other sanctions."

The text condemned Iraq for executions "including political killings and the continued
so-called clean-out of prisons," as well as abuses including "rape as a political tool,"

disappearances, arbitary arrests and detentions and torture.

The resolution called on Iraq to take steps including establishing an independent judiciary
and abrogating all decrees allowing cruel punishments such as mutilation.

It also urged Baghdad to respect the rights of all ethnic and religious groups and end "the
practice of forced deportation and relocation" against the Iraqi Kurds and other groups.

Finally, the text called on Iraq, which invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and occupied the
emirate six months, to cooperate in resolving the fate of several hundred missing persons,
including Kuwaiti prisoners of war and people from other countries.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com