Human rights violations found in Kurdistan

BAGHDAD, April 14 (UPI) -- Amnesty International said Tuesday it found numerous instances of torture, missing persons and other abuses by the security forces in Iraq's Kurdistan region.

The said it told the Kurdistan Regional Government to bring human rights violators to justice.

Malcolm Smart, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program, said that the KRG has improved human rights. He said the area has not seen the violence prevalent in the rest of Iraq.

"Yet real problems -- arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women -- remain and need urgently to be addressed by the government," Smart said.

The KRG has not reduced security officials' power within the two major Kurdish political parties that together make up the KRG. Hundreds of detainees, however, who were imprisoned with no charge or trial for years, have now been set free.