SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Shortly after the Islamic State (IS) took over Mosul in June 2014, 16-year-old Harem (not his real name) from Halabja, who had failed his exams that year, set off from the city without any identification. At the first checkpoint manned by the Kurdish government's Asayish (security) force, Harem was asked where he was heading, given that he had no identification with him. “I am going to Mosul to join Daesh [IS]," the teenager replied. The startled Asayish officers detained him immediately.

But Harem was lucky, according to his lawyer, Sargul Qaradakhi. The judge took mercy on him because of his age. Had he been older, he would have been tried under Iraq's draconian Anti-Terror Law, passed in 2006 by the Kurdistan parliament, and probably would have ended up in prison for 15 years.

Instead, "he was tried in a juvenile court and was freed on the condition that he work under the supervision of a social worker for two years," Qaradakhi told Al-Monitor on July 17.

The Kurdistan parliament's renewal of the Anti-Terror Law on July 1, the fifth time since 2006, has brought to light the plight of some 1,200 people, mostly Arabs, who are in jails across the Kurdish region. They are charged as terror suspects under this law in a process plagued with "rampant due process violations," according to Human Rights Watch.