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 All those executed were Iraqi nationals, justice ministry
spokesman Haider al-Saadi said in a text message to Reuters,
bringing the total number of people executed in less than one week
to 37.
Violence in Iraq has surged in the past year to its highest levels
since the Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian bloodshed that peaked in 2006 and
2007, when tens of thousands of people were killed.
Iraq hanged at least 151 people in 2013, up from 129 in 2012 and 68
in 2011, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its annual world
report published on Tuesday.
The United Nations human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has frequently
condemned Iraq's mass executions.
"This continued conveyor-belt of executions by the government of
Iraq is simply deplorable," her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said on
Sunday, after 26 people were hanged.
"Iraq's justice system still has huge deficiencies which mean that
resorting to even a small number of executions is risking a grave
and irredeemable miscarriage of justice," he said. "When people are
executed by the dozen, it means that such miscarriages of justice
are virtually certain to be occurring."
(Reporting by Raheem Salman; editing by Isabel Coles and Mark Trevelyan)
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