Governments in the Middle East were responsible for serious human rights violations over the past year, including harassment and attacks against human rights defenders and organizations that document abuse.

Middle East and North African governments should follow Iraq's example and sign the International Treaty Banning Cluster Munitions.

Iraq's central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government should protect besieged minorities in the disputed territories of Nineveh province.

Devastating bomb attacks in Baghdad on October 25, 2009,  were an assault on the fundamental principle of respect for life, and Iraqi authorities have a duty to ensure that anyone found to have contributed to their execution is apprehended and brought to justice.

As U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill testifies before Congress today, Iraqi's security is far from assured. Militias now targetting the socially marginalized could soon take their killing spree mainstream.

On August 10, 2009, two truck bombings in Northern Iraq and a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 48 civilians and wounded around 250 others.

All parties in Iraq and elsewhere in conflicts in the Middle East should put an end to attacks that target or indiscriminately harm civilians.

British forces did of course invade, occupy and govern part of Iraq and Saddam's torture chambers were shut down. But the evidence has grown that they were replaced with new forms of abuse of detainees, not only by the US but also by the British.