© Agence France-Presse
The criticism from the New York-based HRW comes less than a year after thousands of Iraqis took to the streets nationwide to criticise the government for poor services.
"Iraq cracked down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating and detaining activists, demonstrators and journalists," HRW said in a statement accompanying its annual report.
HRW noted that Iraq remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, that women's rights remain poor and civilians have paid a heavy toll in bomb attacks.
The rights group pointed to the discovery of a secret prison last February run by forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office, the same troops who ran Camp Honour, another facility where detainees were tortured.
"Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees," Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director, said in the statement.
"Despite US government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a budding police state."
US forces completed their withdrawal from Iraq on December 18, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
As the pullout was winding up, a political crisis erupted in Iraq, pitting the Shiite-led government against the main Sunni-backed bloc which accuses Maliki of centralising power.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Where did anyone get the idea that war liberates? America now reeks of this absurdity. Did you know that the motto of the US Army Special Forces is "To Liberate the Oppressed?" This is a myth established in our culture during the Kennedy years.
When has force of arms ever liberated?
War incarcerates. Inevitably.
When anyone talks about how they are going to "fight for democracy" you know right there that something is suspicious. 1776 to the contrary, that's not how you get democracy. Democracy is one of a few different systems designed to settle political disputes without violence. To enforce it with violence violates its own basic principles.
As far as I can tell, democracy has never been well-established on earth. There is simply insufficient agreement here that it is possible to survive without resorting to force of arms.
There is rather good evidence now to support the belief that democracy was invented as a way to give the public the idea that they are participating in the operation of their governments, when in fact this in only marginally true. Most families don't even operate democratically! So why should we expect towns, cities and states to do so? It's a show, and the sooner we recognize it as such the better.
What we do have is a concept of human rights. In the US this is even carried so far as to say that if the government has the right to an army, then the citizens have the right to one, too.
Politics runs on balances of force and probably always will. As long as beings exist who acquire weapons for the purpose of terrifying others (like a mugger who threatens you then steals your purse) a "sane" force must exist to counter their inclination to do wrong. The great challenge of politics, when it acts for the survival of a society or social order, is to keep that countervailing force relatively sane and honest.
Any criminal operation in any society will seek out those points that tend to act to keep governmental force sane and try to corrupt them so that their ability to perform this function is destroyed. Where they succeed you have tyranny, regardless of what other names you call it or how you dress it up with mighty-sounding principles.
This earth teeters perilously on the brink of such an existence. Who will act to save it?