Organization Urges U.S. Officials to Follow Honest Evaluation of Iraq's
    Human Rights Situation with Concrete Action on Behalf of Vulnerable
                                Populations

    WASHINGTON, June 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The international
community is evading its responsibility toward refugees from Iraq by
promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the
country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said
today.

    The organization's new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee
crisis, said that the Iraqi government and states involved in the invasion
of Iraq in 2003, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom,
highlight "improved" security or "voluntary" returns to Iraq out of
political expedience to demonstrate that their military involvement has
been a success.

    "While the U.S. government's rhetoric indicates otherwise, the human
rights situation in Iraq remains too dire to encourage voluntary returns,"
said Sarnata Reynolds, Amnesty International USA's refugee program
director, who traveled to Jordan in the fall of 2007 to document the Iraqi
refugee crisis there.

    "The United States has a unique responsibility to all people displaced
by the Iraq conflict, but especially the most vulnerable populations such
as the Palestinian refugees from Iraq -- approximately 2700 of whom are
stranded along the treacherous Iraq/Syria border," Reynolds added. "This
report points to the need for honesty about Iraq's livability to be
reflected in deed by the U.S.-led resettlement of those most in danger."

    People are being killed every month by armed groups, the Multinational
Force, Iraqi security forces and private military and security guards.
Kidnappings, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention pervade the
daily lives of Iraqis. People continue to attempt to flee, something that
is now very difficult with the recent imposition of visa restrictions on
Iraqis by Jordan and Syria.

    In the report, which is based on recent research and interviews with
Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world's richest states are
failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom
are living in despair and hurtling towards destitution.

    "Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees and are
failing in their moral, political and legal duties to share responsibility
for them," said Amnesty International. "Instead, apathy and rhetoric have
been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the
world."

    According to the latest estimates from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes
has now reached 4.7 million, the highest since the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq and the subsequent internal armed conflict.

    While Syria and Jordan have shouldered most of the refugee influx,
these countries have now resorted to drastic measures such as restricting
entry and deporting people who may be at risk of persecution. This reaction
is, in part, due to the lack of support from the international community.

    Having exhausted savings, many refugees are now living in complete
destitution and facing new dangers, such as being forced into so-called
"voluntary" return to Iraq and child labor -- many families have been
forced to send their children to work in the streets in a desperate bid to
help them survive.

    For some refugees, the difficulties they are facing in the host country
are prompting them to make the difficult and dangerous decision to return
to Iraq, either temporarily to collect a pension or food ration, or more
permanently because of their desperate situation, not because they feel
they are no longer at risk of human rights abuses in Iraq.

    The report highlights individual cases, such as that of Majid, a
62-year-old retired Shi'a army officer and a widower with seven adult
children. After attempting to find protection in Syria, with only the 50
lira ($1) in his pocket, he had to return to Iraq. Even though he was
extremely scared, he had lost hope, saying "If I die, I die." Majid fled
Iraq in February 2008 after two of his nephews, Mansour and Sami, aged 17
and 19, were beheaded by members of an armed group north of Baghdad. He
exhausted his savings in Syria and was soon left with nothing. Weeping, he
explained to Amnesty International that he had no alternative but to return
to Iraq.

    Many European countries are now attempting to deport Iraqis, sometimes
to some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq. In addition to taking direct
actions forcing Iraqis to return, they are using indirect methods such as
cutting off basic assistance and services to rejected asylum-seekers in
order to force them to "voluntarily" return to Iraq. Sweden, which is host
to the largest number of Iraqi refugees in Europe and once a positive
example to its neighbors, has now changed its approach in this manner.

    Amnesty International is greatly concerned that the failure to respond
to this crisis will worsen an already dire situation. Amongst other things,
it is calling on the international community to: urgently and substantially
raise sustainable financial assistance; end practices such as forcible
returns that put lives at further risk; cease practices that result in
coerced "voluntary" returns; allow individuals to seek paid employment; and
extensively increase resettlement places for the most vulnerable refugees
to start a new life in a third country.

    Amnesty International is also calling on the governments of Syria,
Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as those of other countries in the
region, to allow unrestricted access to people fleeing Iraq, cease all
deportations to Iraq and grant refugees access to the labor market.

    "The international community must make a true commitment to assist
Iraq's displaced people by substantially boosting sustainable financial
assistance, ending forcible returns, stopping practices that result in
coerced voluntary returns and offering increased numbers of resettlement
places," said Amnesty International.

    For more information, or a copy of the embargoed report, Rhetoric and
reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, please contact the AIUSA media office at
202-544-0200 x302.

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