Iraq has released more than 19,000 prisoners under a sweeping amnesty law designed to relieve pressure on its overcrowded prison system, including inmates convicted of being members of ISIL (ISIS).
The move offers legal reprieves to some individuals convicted on terrorism-related charges, judicial authorities said on Tuesday.
The law has also halted all executions, including for former ISIL members. The group once controlled nearly a third of Iraq’s territory after sweeping across the country in 2014, capturing major cities, including Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah, before they were vanquished in 2017.
The years of their control killed thousands of people, displaced hundreds of thousands, decimated the Yazidi population and left vast areas in ruins. Many members were arrested as Iraqi forces retook ISIL-held areas.
The amnesty law, enacted in January, allows certain prisoners convicted of belonging to armed groups to seek release, a retrial or have their cases dismissed. However, those found guilty of killings linked to “extremism” are excluded from eligibility.
The legislation was strongly backed by Sunni lawmakers, many of whom have long argued that anti-terrorism laws disproportionately targeted Sunni communities in the years after Iraq’s clampdown on ISIL.
Detainees will now be permitted to request retrials if they claim their confessions were obtained through torture or coercion while in custody.
After a meeting in Baghdad chaired by Supreme Judicial Council President Faeq Zeidan, officials confirmed that 19,381 prisoners had been freed from January to April.
The total number of individuals benefitting from the law – including those sentenced in absentia, granted bail or with arrest warrants lifted – now stands at 93,597, according to a statement issued after the meeting.
The reforms come amid mounting pressure on Iraq’s penal system. Justice Minister Khalid Shwani said this month that the country’s 31 prisons held about 65,000 inmates – nearly double their intended capacity.
“When we took office, overcrowding stood at 300 percent,” he told The Associated Press news agency. “After two years of reform, we’ve reduced it to 200 percent. Our goal is to bring that down to 100 percent by next year in line with international standards.”
Thousands more people remain in the custody of Iraq’s security forces but have yet to be transferred to the Ministry of Justice due to lack of space.
Among those released under the new amnesty are individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes such as corruption, theft and drug use.
Iraq has faced international criticism for its use of the death penalty. Rights groups have condemned mass executions and opaque legal processes, including carrying out death sentences without notifying prisoners’ families or legal representatives.
The leader of the Democrats in the United States House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, has slammed House Republicans for considering cuts to federal safety net programmes, pointing out that they would impact veterans.
“About 20 percent of households with veterans rely upon supplemental nutritional food assistance,” the representative for New York’s 8th Congressional District said on Thursday, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes called food stamps.
Jeffries’s statement followed news reports that House Republicans are pushing to limit future SNAP benefit increases, add additional work requirements and shift some SNAP costs – which historically have been entirely paid by the federal government – to states.
Jeffries cited an inaccurate figure. The share of veterans relying on SNAP benefits is about 8 percent, according to an April 2 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.
Jeffries’s office did not provide evidence to back up his statement.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report cited Department of Agriculture data showing that 11 percent of veterans aged 18 to 64 nationwide experienced food insecurity from 2015 to 2019. The department defined food insecurity as “limited or uncertain access to enough food” because of a lack of economic resources. The department found that veterans were 7 percent more likely than nonveterans to experience food insecurity after controlling for a range of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.
The centre’s report used US Census Bureau data from 2021 to 2023 to estimate the number of veterans living in households that received any SNAP benefits during the 12 months before being surveyed.
The report estimated that more than 1.2 million veterans lived in households receiving SNAP benefits, which is 8 percent of the total population of 16.2 million US veterans during that period.
Luis Nunez, a research analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of its report, said the 8 percent covers all veterans whether they live alone or with others.
The highest percentage of veterans on food stamps in any state was 14 percent in Oregon, followed by 11 percent in Louisiana, New Mexico and West Virginia.
Nationally, 8% of veterans receive food stamps; no state is higher than 14%
Data from a few years earlier showed lower percentages than the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report.
The Rand Corporation think tank studied data from 2015 to 2020 and found 4.9 percent of veterans nationwide lived in households receiving SNAP benefits at some point in the previous 12 months. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report found 6.5 percent of all veterans received SNAP benefits in 2019. And the Agriculture Department found that in 2018 and 2019, the average was 6.6 percent.
Our ruling
Jeffries said, “About 20 percent of households with veterans rely upon” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
An April 2 study found that 8 percent of veterans in the US rely on SNAP benefits. No state had a share higher than 14 percent.
Studies with data from a few years earlier show rates from 4.9 percent to 6.6 percent.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will lift all sanctions on Syria, declaring that it was time for the country to “move forward”, giving a nation devastated by years of ruinous civil war a crucial opening in reviving its shattered economy.
Speaking at an investment forum in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh during his Middle East tour on Tuesday, Trump said the punitive measures had achieved their “purpose” and were no longer needed.
“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” he said. “It’s their time to shine. We’re taking them all off”.
The president ended his remarks with a direct message to Damascus: “Good luck, Syria. Show us something very special.”
The announcement marks a dramatic shift in Washington’s yearslong policy towards Syria, where sanctions targeted ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s government during years of war, and the country at large over its crackdown on dissent and human rights abuses during that nearly 14-year period.
Syrians suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions were displaced during the war.
“There’s a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in Riyadh, referring to the interim government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Later Tuesday, Al Jazeera Arabic reported on Tuesday that al-Sharaa will meet with Trump in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, according to the Director of Relations at Syria’s Ministry of Information.
Trump had noted that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in Turkiye this week, and said his decision to end the sanctions was influenced by conversations with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Al-Shaibani welcomed the announcement, calling it a “a pivotal turning point for the Syrian people as we move toward a future of stability, self-sufficiency, and true reconstruction after years of devastating war”, according to the state-run SANA news agency.
Al Jazeera’s Senior Political Analyst Marwan Bishara questioned the motives behind Trump’s decision to lift sanctions and what Damascus is prepared to give in return.
While noting that talks are expected between the US and Syrian top diplomats, Bishara asked, “But then what?”
Bishara said that the US had previously laid out conditions for any rapprochement with the new Syrian government, including reported crackdowns on Palestinian groups and possible normalisation with Israel. “There’s also been talk about normalisation with Israel—that the new Syria will join the Abraham Accords at the expense of the Palestinians,” he said.
Key obstacle removed, but others remain
The sanctions relief will be welcomed by al-Sharaa’s government, which also says it wants to transition away from the corrupt system that gave al-Assad loyalists privileged access to government contracts and kept key industries in the hands of the al-Assad family and its Alawite base.
Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, says that while it is important not to overestimate the significance of Trump’s promise to lift sanctions on Syria, it is an important step in the future of a nation devastated by years of war.
“It takes away a key obstacle in their ability to establish some kind of economic development, economic prosperity,” he told Al Jazeera. “But there are plenty of other obstacles and challenges the country is facing.”
Rahman said that Saudi Arabia helped push the US towards its decision to drop sanctions.
“I think the United States was really dragging its feet on sanctions – they wanted to use it as leverage in order to push other policies in Syria,” he said, adding that besides Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were also pushing for this pivotal outcome.
“This wasn’t something that was too difficult for Trump to do,” Rahman added. “He didn’t need to get permission from anybody. He didn’t even need consent from Congress.”
Syria’s new government has sought to rebuild the country’s diplomatic ties, including with international financial institutions. It also counts on wealthy Gulf Arab states to play a critical role in financing the reconstruction of Syria’s war-ravaged infrastructure and reviving its economy.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced in April that they will settle Syria’s debt to the World Bank totalling roughly $15m.
The United Kingdom has also removed its sanctions on 12 Syrian government entities, including the Ministries of Defence and Interior and the General Intelligence Directorate.
But military attacks persist.
Israel has carried out multiple air strikes in Syria since al-Assad’s removal. The country’s presidency denounced an Israeli attack near the presidential palace in Damascus as a “dangerous escalation” earlier this month.
Tensions between Israel and Syria soared after the Israeli government accused the Syrian authorities of failing to protect the country’s Druze minority.
The Syrian government and Druze came to an agreement after days of violence, the latter saying they did not need Israel’s intervention or protection.
Israel has previously called Syria’s interim government a “terror group from Idlib that took Damascus by force”.
Bishara warned against ignoring Israel’s role in destabilising Syria. “The one that occupies Syrian territory… is Israel, which is intervening in Syria, trying to divide and weaken it,” he said. He urged US officials to pressure Israel to halt its interference as sanctions are lifted and Syria attempts to rebuild.
Decades needed to recover
A February report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that at current growth rates, Syria would need more than 50 years to return to the economic level it had before the war, and it called for massive investment to accelerate the process.
The UNDP study said nine out of 10 Syrians now live in poverty, one-quarter are jobless and Syria’s gross domestic product (GDP) “has shrunk to less than half of its value” in 2011, the year the war began.
Syria’s Human Development Index score, which factors in life expectancy, education and standard of living, has fallen to its worst level since it was first included in the index in 1990, meaning the war erased decades of development.
I had closely followed the genocidal war in Gaza for nine months when an opportunity came around to volunteer as part of a medical mission organised by the United Nations, World Health Organization and the Palestinian American Medical Association.
As a trained nephrologist, a doctor who treats patients with kidney disease, I felt there was a critical need for specialised medical care amid the collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza and the high number of medical specialists who had been killed.
I also felt it was my duty as a Muslim to help the people of Gaza. Islam teaches us that whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved all of humanity; taking care of others is an act of worship, and standing up against injustice is a moral obligation.
I believe my degrees are not meant to simply hang on the walls of an air-conditioned office or help me drive the nicest car or live in an expensive neighbourhood. They are a testament to the fact that I have taken an oath to dedicate my expertise to the service of humanity, to maintain the utmost respect for human life and to offer my medical knowledge and compassion to those in need.
So on July 16, I departed for Gaza with a few other medics.
We entered the strip through the Karem Abu Salem crossing. We went from observing the prosperity, comfort and wealth of the Israeli side to recoiling at the destruction, devastation and misery of the Palestinian side. We basically saw what apartheid looks like.
On our short trip through southern Gaza to reach our destination in Khan Younis, we saw many buildings bombed, damaged or destroyed. Homes, schools, shops, hospitals, mosques – you name it.
The amount of rubble was sickening. To this day, I can’t unsee the landscapes of destruction I witnessed in Gaza.
We were accommodated in Al-Nasser Hospital because it was too dangerous to stay at any other place. We were welcomed and cared for so much that I felt embarrassed. We were seen as saviours.
I treated patients with kidney problems, worked as a primary care physician and sometimes helped during mass casualty events in the emergency room.
The author with one of his patients at Al Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip [Courtesy of Talal Khan]
Dialysis requires clean water, sterile supplies, reliable electricity, medications and equipment that must be maintained and replaced – none of which was guaranteed under the Israeli blockade. Each dialysis session was a challenge. Every delay increased the risk of my patients dying. Many of them did die – a fact I struggled to accept, knowing that under normal circumstances, many of them could have been saved and lived normal lives.
I remember the smiling face of one of my patients, Waleed, a young man who suffered from kidney failure caused by early-onset high blood pressure, a condition that, with access to proper treatment, could have been managed appropriately.
Dialysis was Waleed’s lifeline, but he couldn’t get an adequate number of sessions due to the Israeli blockade causing severe shortages of medical supplies. Malnutrition and worsening living conditions only accelerated his decline.
I remember how short of breath he was, his body overloaded with fluid and his blood pressure dangerously high. And yet, every time I saw him, Waleed greeted me with a warm smile, his spirit somehow intact, his mother always by his side. A few months after I left Gaza, Waleed passed away.
Another patient of mine was Hussein, a gentle, kind-hearted, deeply respected man. His children cared for him with love and dignity.
He suffered from severe hypokalaemia and acidosis: His body’s potassium levels were dangerously low, and acid built up to toxic levels. To address his condition, he needed basic medications: potassium supplements and sodium bicarbonate pills.
These were simple, inexpensive, life-saving medicines, and yet, the Israeli blockade did not allow them in. Because he could not find these pills, Hussein was hospitalised multiple times for intravenous potassium supplementation.
Despite his immense suffering, Hussein remained gracious, brave and full of faith. When speaking, he always repeated the phrase Alhamdulillah (praise be to God). He passed away a few weeks ago, I was told.
Waleed and Hussein should be here – smiling, laughing, living happily with their families. Instead, they became casualties of siege and silence. These are two of so many tragic stories I know of and I witnessed. So many beautiful lives that could have been saved were lost.
Despite this grim reality, my colleagues in Gaza continue to do their utmost for their patients.
These are medics who are bruised in every way. They are not only battling the daily struggles of life like all other Palestinians in Gaza but also witnessing daily horrors of headless babies, amputated limbs, fully burned human beings and sometimes the lifeless remains of their own loved ones.
Imagine working with no anaesthesia, limited pain medications, very few antibiotics. Imagine surgeons scrubbing with plain water, children undergoing amputations with no sedation, full-body burns patients’ dressings being changed with no pain relief.
Still these healthcare heroes just keep going.
One of the nurses I worked with, Arafat, made a deep impression on me. He was living in a makeshift shelter with multiple family members. It offered no protection against the elements – the cold winter, the scorching heat or the drenching rain.
He starved – like all other Palestinians in Gaza – losing 15kg (33lb) in nine months. He walked 2km to 3km (1 to 2 miles) every day to work with worn-out sandals, facing the danger of Israeli drones bombing or shooting him in the street.
And yet, the smile never left his face. He took care of more than 280 dialysis patients, treating them with care, attentively listening to their anxious families and uplifting his colleagues with light humour.
I felt so small next to heroes like Arafat. His and his colleagues’ resilience and persistence were unbelievable.
While in Gaza, I had the opportunity to visit Al-Shifa Hospital with a UN delegation. What once was Gaza’s largest and most vital medical centre was reduced to ruins. The hospital that was once a symbol of hope and healing had become a symbol of death and destruction, of the deliberate dismantling of healthcare. It was beyond heartbreaking to see its charred, bombed-out remains.
I stayed in Gaza for 22 days. It was an absolute honour to visit, serve and learn life from the resilient people of Gaza. Their relentless courage and determination will stay with me until I die.
Despite witnessing what I could have never imagined, I did not have the urge to leave. I wanted to stay. Back in the United States, I felt profound guilt that I left behind my colleagues and my patients, that I did not stay, that I did not do enough.
Feeling this constant heartache, I cannot understand the growing number of people who are accustomed to the daily reports of Palestinian deaths and images of torn bodies and starving children.
As human beings and as health workers, we cannot quit on Gaza. We cannot stay silent and passive. We must speak out and act on the devastation of healthcare and attacks on our colleagues in the Gaza Strip.
Already fewer and fewer healthcare workers are being allowed to enter Gaza on medical missions. The current blockade has prevented all medical supplies from going in.
We, as healthcare professionals, must mobilise to demand an immediate lifting of the siege and free access to medical missions. We must not stop volunteering to help the struggling medical teams in Gaza. Such acts of speaking out and volunteering give our colleagues in Gaza the hope and comfort that they have not been abandoned.
Let us not allow Gaza to be just a symbol of destruction. Instead, let it be the example of unbreakable spirit.
Stand, speak and act – so history remembers not just the tragedy but also the triumph of human compassion.
