UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein [official profile] on Monday expressed concern [UN News Centre report] over efforts by the Iraqi government to expedite implementation of the death penalty. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has created a committee to identify delays and accelerate the process. Zeid expressed concern that the committee would be operating in an already flawed system:

Given the weaknesses of the Iraqi justice system, and the current environment in Iraq, I am gravely concerned that innocent people have been and may continue to be convicted and executed, resulting in gross, irreversible miscarriages of justice. … Fast-tracking executions will only accelerate injustice.

Zeid called for a moratorium on the death penalty. There are an estimated 1,200 inmates currently on death row in Iraq.

Iraq has long faced international criticism for its use of the death penalty. In February Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] criticized [JURIST report] the state of justice in Iraq after a court sentenced 40 men to death. Last August a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] spoke against the execution [JURIST report] of an Iraqi man and his two wives in the Kurdistan region. In 2014 UN officials called on the government of Iraq to impose a moratorium [JURIST report] on the death penalty in response to a significant rise in executions since the country restored capital punishment in 2005.