(5 May 2025)
IRAQ JUSTICE MINISTER
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
LENGTH: 3:12
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Baghdad – 5 May 2025
1. Ministry of Justice building
2. Sign reading (Arabic): "Ministry of Justice"
3. Various of people entering the building
4. Policeman guarding ministry’s gate
Baghdad – 3 May 2025
5. Iraqi flag
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Shwani, Iraq’s Justice Minister:
"The big number of inmates in Iraqi prisons – we’ve pointed out repeatedly and are repeating again – is beyond the capacity of the correctional facilities of the Ministry of Justice due to the extraordinary conditions that Iraq has experienced."
Baghdad – 5 May 2025
7. Various of cars in roundabout near the Ministry of Justice
Baghdad – 3 May 2025
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Shwani, Iraq’s Justice Minister:
"The majority of the prisoners are convicted of terrorism for their involvement with terrorist organizations and for committing crimes against the Iraqi people, especially the al-Qaida and Islamic State groups. There are currently multiple nationalities. We have people from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Egypt, North Africa, and we have people from some European countries. So it is spread over many countries."
Baghdad – 5 May 2025
9. Various of Ministry of Justice entrance
Baghdad – 3 May 2025
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Shwani, Iraq’s Justice Minister:
"We have a committee with the goal to study the reality inside prisons and classifying the crimes covered by the amnesty law, according to the decisions and approach of the court in issuing the amnesty decision and who would be included in it. For that reason, the vision so far is not definitively clear. But in our perception, we believe that there will be a considerable number who will be covered by the amnesty law."
11. Library, books on shelf
12. Shwani’s hand
13. Picture of Shwani with late Iraqi politician Jalal Talabani
14. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khaled Shwani, Iraq’s Justice Minister:
"Our measures against anyone who violates the rights of prisoners are strict. It is true that they are criminals and have committed a crime, but our facilities are correctional facilities. Yes, our goal is deterrence, but at the same time it is reform. Therefore, any violation of inmates’ rights is confronted with strict measures. And indeed, you have seen us refer many of our employees to the judiciary, to interrogation, and dismissing them from their positions and subjecting them to extensive administrative penalties. So we don’t tolerate anyone who tries to violate the rights of the inmates."
Baghdad – 5 May 2025
15. People leaving the Ministry of Justice
16. Traffic near Ministry of Justice
STORYLINE:
As a general amnesty law takes effect in Iraq, the country’s prisons are facing a crisis of overcrowding, housing more than double their intended capacity, the country’s justice minister said in an interview.
Justice Minister Khaled Shwani told The Associated Press on Saturday that Iraq’s 31 prisons currently hold approximately 65,000 inmates, despite the system being built to accommodate only half that number.
He acknowledged that the overcrowding has put a severe strain on prison healthcare and human rights standards.
Thousands more detainees remain in the custody of security agencies but have not yet been transferred to the Ministry of Justice due to lack of prison capacity.
Four new prisons are under construction, Shwani said, while three have been closed in recent years.
Two others have been opened and six existing prisons expanded.
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