Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 01:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Contains speculation, original research, non-encyclopedic, makes many claims not atributable to anyone. It was originally an article called "The Dirty Dozen" which was a made up term nobody uses and gives no sources for such a term. It also violates guidelines for living persons. Also uses weasel words. It also not a person, place, thing, or specific event requiring an entry into an encyclopedia. It is also redundant, and serves no purpose. It is basically an article for original research. Jfrascencio 01:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment we also have an AfD on Human rights in pre-Saddam Iraq from a couple of days ago. FiggyBee 01:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and reference All are good reasons to keep working on the article, none are good reason's for deletion. Every country has an article on human rights Category:Human rights by country. The big ones are broken down into smaller articles like this one is. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, cleanup and reference. What the article was previously named is of little importance. Better to put such an obviously important topic on WP:AID than resort to deletion because it has some problems. -- Dhartung | Talk 04:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Give it some time, looks like there is a good faith effort here to add reputable secondary sourced citations... Smee 07:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC).
• Keep There are obvious attempts to make this more encyclopedic. Important subject worthy of coverage and this article is getting there. StuartDouglas 09:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Instead of deletion there should be a main article about Human rights in Iraq and this article can be one of its sub-article. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 10:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This article at the moment looks very much like OR and without the references lacks the NPOV. Condemnation has no place in an encyclopaedia. I notice the article mentions arms dealings with Russia, China and France but fails to note Britain and the USA doing the same. In the current form the article is quite inappropriate. Suriel1981 11:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but merge with the other two human rights in Iraq articles to one article, as per Sa.vakilian --Martin Wisse 13:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete unless article can be brought up to NPOV which would include renaming to Human Rights in Iraq. There is hardly an indication that human rights were more respected before Saddam nor are there any that they are after Saddam Alf^Photoman 13:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Alf Photoman. The text is also collection pure OR. Pavel Vozenilek 14:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete but allow recreation Keep but clean-up Valid topic, obviously, but poorly handled. Pitifully few references. Until someone wants to sort out the whole "Human rights in Iraq" series of articles mess by doing some proper research and reliable sourcing, it should be deleted. Looks like the mess is being sorted. --Folantin 15:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Reading the talk page, this series of articles evolved from a single article on human rights in Iraq; a decision was made to split them up. It would probably be a bad idea to merge them back against the wishes of the editors. The POV of the article could certainly use improvement; a comparison of human rights in SH's Iraq to rights in other Arab/Muslim countries of the time might be instructive, for instance. Brianyoumans 19:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment These are good points, but even though there are obvious chronological reasons to split the topmost article this way, it also results in a quasi-POV fork, with the pro-invasion group editing this article and the anti-invasion group the other, both seeking to prove their convictions correct. -- Dhartung | Talk 09:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The rightness or wrongness of the U.S. invasion isn't going to rest on human rights violations (other factors are involved: whether the invasion works in accomplishing various goals, whether the costs outweigh the benefits or vice versa, whether the invasion had to be done to stop Saddam's regime from using or getting WMDs or being or becoming a base for terrorists -- all sorts of reasons were given by Bush and others for the war; even bringing democracy to Iraq isn't quite the same issue as how bad the human rights record there was). And there's nothing inherently POV-forkish about separating the vast subject of Iraqi human rights violations into regime periods, since the situation obviously changed with different regimes: Before Saddam human rights were in various states; during Saddam's regime that regime was responsible for a certain level of human rights; after Saddam responsibility shifted elsewhere. The subject naturally divides that way. There is no inherent contradiction in one article describing the Saddam regime's human rights record and articles that describe human rights before or after, and no benefit to combining them that I can see. There is, without a doubt, plenty of sourceable information out there. The subject of the article is too important to delete. Too bad it hasn't been cared for better. The best argument for deleting, to my mind, is that the article shows no promise of being well-edited, despite it's importance and appropriateness.Noroton 16:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep there's nothing irrepairable here and the subject is both noteworthy and sourceable (and any comparison of Saddam's regime with any other regime in the Middle East would show just how evil he was, with hundreds of thousands murdered). Noroton 01:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • He was certainly no Boy Scout, but compare for instance the violent suppression of revolt in Syria (involving thousands of deaths), the actions of the army in the Algerian civil war in the 90s, Morocco's actions in the Western Sahara, Turkey's behavior in Turkish Kurdistan, and so on. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but his actions occurred in an area of the world where Western-style human rights are not generally respected, and it is fairly common for governments to use force, sometimes brutal force, to suppress opposition, especially from minority populations. We should view him in context. Brianyoumans 05:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This isn't the place for political discussion. As for the article? It doesn't have proof of what it claims. Amnesty International style condemnations are unencyclopaedic. Suriel1981 16:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Also there are no articles on Human Rights in Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mubarak's Egypt, Musharraf's Pakistan, Sharon's Israel, Castro's Cuba, Shah's Iran, Bush's United States, Ceasar's Roman Empire, Alexander's Greek Empire, Xerxes Persian Empire, or any other article about human rights in any other leader leader's country article. --Jfrascencio 22:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep Most of the reasons given for deletion are patently invalid:

"Speculation, original research, -- It is merely the collection of published accounts, as with all good WP articles. Calling it speculation seems POV.

"non-encyclopedic" also POV -- its a subject of general interest about which factual material can be found.

'"makes many claims not atributable to anyone" -- Yes, section 1 does need specific sources for every allegation. But they are finadable, so not a reason for deletion.

"It was originally an article called "The Dirty Dozen" which was a made up term nobody uses and gives no sources for such a term." It fgives the sources, and any number of news stories could be added.

It mentions a book about "The Dirty Dozen", which then became a movie, which has nothing to do with Iraq. When referring to Iraq (Iraq's Dirty Dozen), the source of the term is U.S. officials. Just because certain national officials use a term, doesn't mean there should be an article about (i.e. The Imperialist Regime, see no article about it) --Jfrascencio 00:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

"It also violates guidelines for living persons." Sourced reports on major newsworthy criminals are not BLP violations--but agreed, it does need sources.

" Also uses weasel words." Thats about the opposite of the previous reason.

" It also not a person, place, thing, or specific event requiring an entry into an encyclopedia. " Another way of saying nonencyclopedic, and I think almost everyone would say just the opposite. That other parties in iraq may have continued some such practices is no reason to exclude this part of the story.

"It is also redundant," apparently meaning the subject is treated elsewhere. But a collected article of this sort makes sense.

"and serves no purpose. It is basically an article for original research" All said before, and all wrong.

That said, I think it is an outrageously unsourced article for a topic such as this, and there's a lot to be deleted from it. Eds. who workecd on an article on such a topic should try to make it really solid. Thats why I said "weak". And because of the title, but it's hard to think of a clearer one./ DGG 22:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge to Human rights in Iraq. Don't need to divide up articles like this.--Sefringle 04:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment This article is not OR anymore and it's important enough to keep it separate from Human rights in Iraq as a sub-article. We can put a summary of this article there.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 04:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Now, I think this article should be merged into Human rights in Iraq. No reason to single out a single leader that only ruled for 20 years, or Wikipedia will be littered with Human rights in (leader's name)(leader's country) articles. The only reason this article exists is in part of a demonization campaign to promote war. --Jfrascencio 20:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep No good reasons to delete. Lots of problems means lots of fixing. The subject is very important. SmokeyJoe 09:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This article is also entirely negative and condemning. (NPOV) It makes no mention of positive human rights practices such as secular government, woman's rights like driving and voting (which isn't allowed in Saudi Arabia), rights given in the constitution, amnesty for those imprisoned, the rights of Kurds to their language being official in Kurdish areas (In Turkey, the Kurdish language is illegal), etc. --Lft6771 04:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep No reason not to. Robbskey 22:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.