The Middle East
This year has seen positive and negative developments in the situation of poli- tical imprisonment in the Middle East. In Iraq, with the government's interven- tion in the year-long war with the Kurds, there has been a serious decline in the observance of human rights. In Saudi Arabia, the accession of a new ruler was marked by a much-welcomed amnesty for political prisoners, and a new government in the Yemen Arab Republic announced that all political prisoners, except those convicted of sabotage, were to be released. The recent increasing tension between Iraq and Syria resulted in the arrest of many alleged pro-Iraqi elements in Syria. In Egypt worsening economic conditions and growing oppos- ition to the government from students and workers have led to wide scale arrests among all sections of Egyptian society.
In other areas the situation has remained largely unaltered. Iran and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen continue to cause grave concern. The continuing Arab-Israeli conflict has resulted in many arrests in both the West Bank and Jordan, in spite of international endeavours to obtain a peaceful settlement.
Amnesty International has taken up the issue of detention without trial with most governments in the Middle East, of deportation with Israel, of disappearan- ces and kidnappings with the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and of torture, which has frequently resulted in death, with Iraq. But perhaps the greatest causes of concern in the area are the continuing high incidence of official and unofficial executions in Iran and the alarming increase in death sentences in Iraq.
There has been an encouraging increase in the response and cooperation from many governments over the past year. The development of personal contacts at governmental level, among the legal profession, etc., is still an important priority of Al's work in the Middle East, and several different types of missions to the area have contributed to this end.
In October 1974 a French member of the International Executive Committee attended, as an observer, the Congress of the Union of Arab Lawyers in Baghdad. This provided an opportunity not only to renew contacts made during Al's first visit to Iraq in May 1974, but also to make the acquaintance of many