A total of eight convicted of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group were executed this Thursday in Iraqin the midst of a rise in applications of capital punishment in this country, Iraqi security sources informed EFE today.

A security source in the city of Nasiriya, the capital of the southern province of Di Qar, said on condition of anonymity that the eight convicted They were hanged for “perpetrating terrorist acts and belonging to the Islamic State” after being convicted, in accordance with the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2005.

The executions were carried out in Al Hut prison, where most of the capital sentences handed down in Iraq are applied, and were carried out in the presence of a specialized team from the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, according to the informant. who added that all those executed were Iraqis.

On May 6, another 11 people were executed in a single day on similar charges in Iraq, a country that executed the same number of people in all of 2022, according to Amnesty International (AI). Several human rights organizations, including AI, have denounced that these executions take place after those convicted are found guilty of “overly broad and vague” terrorism charges and after a judicial process with “an alarming lack of transparency.”

Amnesty International then expressed concern that “many more people have been secretly executed amid a disturbing lack of transparency regarding executions in Iraq in recent months”. Likewise, he recalled that local media reported on December 25, 2023 about the executions of 13 men, in what was the first mass execution recorded in the country since November 2020.

According to the NGO, More than 8,000 prisoners are currently sentenced to capital punishmentwhile some 150 people are at “imminent risk” of being executed after the president of Iraq, Abdellatif Rashid, ratified their sentences, an essential requirement for them to be carried out.

Executions in Iraq are carried out by hanging, but many of the death sentences issued by Iraqi courts are not carried out as they require a long administrative process and ratification by the president.