Asayish (Kurdistan Region)

Asayîş or Asayish (Kurdish for security ) is the Kurdish security organization and the primary intelligence agency operating in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. The organization was established in September 1993 and has been often referred to as an "intelligence agency", "security force", "security service", "security", "secret service", "secret police", or just "Kurdish police." Asayish coordinates and shares information with Parastin u Zanyari, the investigative arms and intelligence gatherers operating in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.

It acts under the command of the Kurdistan Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Its official goals according to the Kurdistan Regional Government are the following:
 * Counter-drug trafficking
 * Counter-terrorism
 * Counter-espionage
 * Gathering intelligence
 * Assessing threats to the region's national security.

The organization has jurisdiction over:
 * Economic crimes
 * Smuggling
 * Political crimes
 * Espionage
 * Sabotage
 * Terrorism.

Issues
In 2009 Amnesty International accused Asayish of abusing human rights, including torture and other ill-treatment, and claimed that the agency was "above the law" in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Regional Government criticized Amnesty by stating: "Most of the information provided in the report chronicles problems we had just after the fall of Saddam, when we were still subject to Saddam-era penal codes...Amnesty had a particular agenda and used dubious information, often very old, to paint an unrealistically harsh picture of the security forces in our Region by bringing up allegations of abuse at prisons such as in Akre, which have long been closed."

- Kurdistan Regional Government