Case No. UKUT-00544-(IAC)

30. Amnesty International also provided a report, dated 14th May 2015, which was written for the specific purposes of the instant case, and which made observations about the current situation in Iraq . In paragraphs 12 and 13 of its report Amnesty International state as follows regarding the information that led it to the conclusions summarised below: “The information to be provided in this matter is sourced from Amnesty International’s Iraq Team, part of the Middle East and North Africa Programme, which carries out research and advocacy work on countries in the region including Iraq . The Iraq Team consists of experienced research and campaigning staff who conduct research both in the field, where possible, and from AI’s various offices. The Team receives information from a wide variety of sources. These sources include state and officially sanctioned, or permitted sources, such as online newspapers and state broadcasters; a wide range of websites and blogs; human rights activists, including lawyers and community workers and from detainees and their families. Other sources include journalists, refugees, diplomats, religious bodies and humanitarian agencies. The team monitor online news outlets and newspaper websites and other media outlets… Amnesty’s crisis senior researcher…has conducted on the ground research during the current crisis and documented a wide range of human rights abuses…” 31. In summary, Amnesty International concluded that: “[t]he areas held or contested by IS 3 contain very substantial dangers of killing and other human rights abuse of the utmost gravity, including torture and sexual violence. Baghdad city continues to be one of the most dangerous cities on earth, with mass-casualty terrorist incidents perpetrated both by IS supporters and armed militias, as well as kidnappings and murders by such militias against Sunnis, other minority groups and those perceived as likely to be worth ransom money” . It expressed serious concern “ at the prospect of Iraqis from the contested zones being returned to Iraq on the basis that it would be reasonable for them to relocate to Baghdad or the IKR.” 32. The report noted in particular that “while Amnesty International had been expressing serious concerns regarding the human rights conditions in Iraq for many years, the events of the last year have rendered the country one of the most dangerous in the world” . It added that “the rise of the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) across both Iraq and Syria has led to extraordinary levels of violence occurring across the country and on a daily basis” . It then reviewed reports by the UNHCR, the US Institute for the Study of War and various newspapers relating to the areas in Iraq currently held by ISIL and added that it regarded the situation as highly volatile, fluid and subject to change at very short notice. Reference is made to Amnesty’s own reports on the scale of human rights abuses by ISIL and the mass exodus of Shi’a Muslims, Christians and other minorities from the areas captured by ISIL. In particular, it noted that in September 2014 it was reported that “the group that calls itself the ISIL has carried out ethnic cleansing on a historic scale in northern Iraq ” . In addition it is noted that the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq had found evidence of numerous examples of targeted executions carried out by ISIL and the use of mass graves. 33. Amnesty International also observed that “IS operatives, supporters and allied groups (chiefly sectarian Sunni militia) have regularly perpetrated attacks [outside the contested areas], chiefly through the use of Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED), Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS), bombings, suicide bombings, mass shootings and targeted assassinations” . A review was undertaken of the known statistics for the number of Iraqis killed and wounded in February 2015 and observation was made that Baghdad was the worst affected governorate with 1,165 civilian casualties. In addition, the report listed a variety of attacks in many areas of Baghdad in May 2015, which involved IEDs, VBIEDs, beheadings, shootings and rocket attacks – it being stated that “perpetrators appear to vary but include individuals resident in the city allied to IS or in sympathy with them, members of clandestine militia and terrorist groups; and sectarian militias and members or sympathisers of IS who succeed in entering the city from IS held territory” . As a result, checkpoints have been set up around entrance points to Baghdad and militiamen at one such checkpoint told a person, whom they were unaware was a representative of Amnesty International, that “if we catch ‘those dogs’ [Sunnis] coming down from the Tikrit area we execute them; in those areas they are all working with DA’ESH (ISIL). They come to Baghdad to commit terrorist crimes. So we have to stop them.” It also noted that it , “along with many other independent international observers, have documented for months the use of retaliatory and sectarian attacks by government forces and Shi’a militias against Iraq ’s Sunni population and other minority groups” . 34. The report continues by noting that the Jamestown Foundation have provided an outline of the leading Shi’a militia groups currently operating in Iraq, which says that “it is estimated that close to a million volunteers answered Sistani’s call [for Iraqis to form militias to fight ISIL] and signed up in the following weeks and months. Some of the most important militias under the Hashd al-Sha’abi include the Badr Organization, Saraya al-Salam, Asa’ib, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Saraya Taleaa al-Khorasani and Kata’ib Imam Ali”. It added that “Hashd al-Sha’abi is assisted by Iran via General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran ’s elite Quds Force, the overseas paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” . In addition, it observed that “Hashd al-Sha’abi is funded by the Iraqi government, which not only provides the fighters’ salaries but also its military capabilities” . The report went on to identify that the Shi’a militias “were substantially responsible for preventing the complete overrun of Iraq by ISIL forces after the collapse of the Iraqi army in the summer of 2014. They have since been heavily engaged in the anti-ISIL fighting alongside ISF troops. However, they have also been documented to have engaged in large scale sectarian violence against Iraq ’s Sunni population both in areas outside of IS control and in recently ‘liberated’ areas” . It is later observed that “while the rise of IS and the brutality of its behaviour has been widely documented in the international press, this concurrent rise in sectarian murder by Shi’a militias and Iraqi government forces has received less mainstream attention” . 35. The report continues by identifying that there has been a “[p]attern of Shi’a militia attacks, justified by the perpetrators as retribution and retaliation for IS activities but frequently motivated by sectarian hatred and ordinary criminality, has continued” – subsequently adding that “[w]hile the majority of sectarian killing appears to be between the adherents to the Sunni and Shi’a Islamic faiths, Amnesty shares the concerns of many other international observers that sectarian violence appears to be spreading through other communities, as the ongoing conflict appears to be breaking down what remains of the inter-communal bonds within the Iraqi state as a whole.”