Asayîş or Asayish () Kurdish for ''security'' is the Kurdish security organization and the primary intelligence agency operating in the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan Region. The organization was established in September 1993Mew
/ref> and has been often referred to as an "

intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, Intelligence analysis, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy obj ...

", " security force", " security service", "security", "secret service", "

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

", or just "Kurdish police." Asayish coordinates and shares information with Parastin u Zanyari, the investigative arms and intelligence gatherers operating in the

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous Federal regions of Iraq, federal region of the Iraq, Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurds, Kurdish-majority governorates of Arabs, Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate ...

in Iraq. It acts under the command of the Kurdistan Parliament and the

Kurdistan Regional Government The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is the official executive body of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. The cabinet is selected by the majority party or list who also select the prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdish poli ...

. Its official goals according to the

are the following: * Counter-drug trafficking *

Counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

Counter-espionage Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting ac ...

* Gathering intelligence * Assessing threats to the region's national security. They have jurisdiction over many aspects of crime including: * Economic crimes *

Smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

Political crimes In criminology, a political crime or political offence is an offence that prejudices the interests of the state or its government. States may criminalise any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or imagined, to the state's survival, including ...

Espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

Sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...

Terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

Issues

In 2009

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

accused Asayish of abusing

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

, including torture and other ill-treatment, and claimed that the agency was "above the law" in

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan () refers to the Kurds, Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of Greater Kurdistan in West Asia, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdist ...

. The

criticized Amnesty by stating: In November 2016,

reported that Kurdish authorities (namely

Peshmerga The Peshmerga () are the internal security forces of Kurdistan Region. According to the Constitution of Iraq, regional governments are responsible for "the establishment and organization of the internal security forces for the region such as p ...

and Asayish) had taken part in Kurdification, by forcefully displacing Arabs in Kirkuk by bulldozing homes and banishing the residents.

References

Iraqi intelligence agencies Kurdistan Region (Iraq) Law enforcement in Iraq 1993 establishments in Iraq Government agencies established in 1993 {{gov-agency-stub

Issues

See also

References