ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A list of prisoner names has been sent to the Kurdistan Region Presidency for a special amnesty to be issued for some prisoners who suffer from serious illnesses and old age, an official from the Region’s correctional facilities said on Sunday.
The amnesty will include inmates who are too old or deal with serious health issues such as cancer or those who suffered a stroke, Ihsan Abdulrahman, the general director of the Kurdistan Region’s correctional facilities, told Rudaw.
“Some of the inmates who are unable to move should be freed, and it will also reduce the burden on the prisons,” Abdulrahman said.
A special committee from the Kurdistan Region Presidency, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), as well as the justice, labor, and health ministries, has been formed to review the cases and decide on who will be pardoned.
According to the Kurdistan Region’s laws, President Nechirvan Barzani can only issue amnesty to groups of inmates on special conditions. A general amnesty requires an approval from the parliament.
According to the latest data from the Kurdistan Region’s general directorate of correctional facilities, 5,563 inmates are in six correctional facilities - three for male prisoners and three for female and juvenile pretrial detainees and prisoners.
In its 2022 report on human rights practices in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the US State Department criticized the overcrowding in the Region’s detention centers, saying the number of detainees had exceeded the facilities’ designed capacity by 157 percent during that year.
The report also criticized the centers’, sanitation, hygiene, lack of adequate water, lack of adequate medical services, outdated infrastructure, and violence used during preliminary detention.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report
