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Iraq Prison Analysis

by tristan
Article about an Iraqi I met and his time in prison. Plus analysis of the situation of abuse.
khalid_and_uzma.jpg
Analysis of prison abuses in Iraq
I was in Iraq for the month of February. While I was there I met a peace activist from the UK named Uzma. She had been in Iraq as a peace shield during the war and had done some video reports for a few British TV stations. The filming was done by an Iraqi cameraman named Khalid Mohammed Abed al-Mosawi*. On January 30, 2004 at 3:00 am the US Army raided his house. He heard a bang at the door and stuck his head out the window to say he would be right down, so as not to have the door blown up. He didn’t want to wake and scare his wife but tells her to get dressed and get the jewelry (Thousands of Iraq’s have lost gold jewelry and large amounts of money during raids in this country with no regular banks). The translator demands that he hand over his tapes and camera and said someone accused him of filming the resistance (the US offers rewards for information against the resistance). The US soldiers are shout angrily in English but Khalid also speaks English and said that he will give them anything and that he would be thankful if they didn’t destroy the house. His 4 and 2 year old children are asleep, the soldiers search the bed. “This is my job, I know how to do it.” Due to his English ability they let him put on cloths, then they handcuff and blindfold him.
He is taken to the Adhamiyya Palace (now a US army base). He is blindfolded for two days, he cant breath and his handcuffs are kept on for two days behind his back then for two more days in front. As anyone who has ever beer handcuffed knows this is a form of torture. Khalid was afraid to lay down as he feared he will not be able to get up again. He thought of his children at home and how today is Eid al-Fitr the biggest celebration of the year (like Christmas in the US). His brothers would be there for the first time since they fled Saddam eight years ago. He proclaims his innocence and says “We have full justice (Iraqi’s under US occupation) it says on TV“. After four days he is transferred to the US jail in front of the Ministry of the Interior. The soldiers say if he cooperates and tells the truth they will give him back his camera and tapes and let him go tomorrow. That night he finally falls asleep on the wet floor, alone in the rain. A US soldier wearing a ski mask yanks off his blankets and stands over him. Khalid is small, maybe 5’6” and has a slim frame. He stares up in fear, he believed in the system and that innocence was good enough. Now he knows better. The US soldier threatens him as is his job to treat all Iraqi’s, its called softening them up so they crack during interrogation. At 4:00 am Khalid is interrogated “Where is your friend who ran away when we caught you by the palace (a lie)”. From this jail prisoners are released, sent to Baghdad Airport (US base and prison) for more interrogation or sent to Abu Ghraib for long term imprisonment.
He and a bunch of other prisoners are taken to a place and made to face the wall with their hands behind their back. “Nobody move”. They are very near the shooting range and the bullets fly by, more intimidation. Khalid commented on Sergeant Johnson, a black soldier in charge of the day shift, and said he was Ä good man” and let them go to the bathroom three times a day. They never got to bathe, smoke or eat Iraqi food. Most prisoners are only there four or five days. Every day the soldiers call names and blindfold and handcuff prisoners and take them off, but to where, freedom or Abu Ghraib? At Abu Ghraib innocent prisoners usually wait four to six months before released (according to the army).
All prisons in Iraq are the same, there is no Habeas Corpus, no trials, no lawyers or hearings of any kind and no contact with the outside world at all. Khalid is held across from the Ministry of the Interior for 13 days. On the outside we work for his freedom. We call the Officer in charge everyday. We start an international e-mail campaign and thousands of messages are soon received by the officer in charge and Paul Bremmer “ambassador “to Iraq. The British television stations prove that he worked for them and demand his freedom as a member of the press. Eventually Khalid is sent back to the Palace. The Sergeant says “We are sorry, we find you innocent.”
The soldiers had never mentioned all the e-mails that were sent or the visitors for him. When a soldier described his family and said that they came every day Khalid said “I cried at that time”.
Was Khalid’s story particularly awful for an Iraqi prisoner? No, in fact it was only noteworthy in its normalness. This is what happens to every arrested Iraqi. There are thousands of cases that are far worse than his. If one wants, it is easy to interview people in Iraq that have been tortured to many different degrees by Coalition soldiers. Khalid was lucky, not only was he innocent but he speaks English quite well and had massive English speaking support on the outside. I believe that if it wasn’t for us, he would be in Abu Ghraib right now.

The torture and humiliation of prisoners in Abu Ghraib by US soldiers has become a big news story. The treatment of prisoners is not any surprise to people in Iraq or human rights organizations, we knew about it all along. The most surprising aspect of the whole thing may be the quality of the photos and that it got out of the military’s hands and all over the news. It is also interesting to me that many of the accused US soldiers were from a National Guard unit and work as prison guards in the US. In Iraq nobody gets into the prisons but the guards and the suspected “terrorists“. There are no visits from families, no lawyers, no Red Cross, no information gets out and no oversight is let in. Families rely on the few released prisoners to get any news and often don’t know what prison family members are being kept in or even if they are still alive. The Occupation doesn’t seem to think it’s important to let families know when inmates die or are killed.
The New York times had a very interesting article today(5/6/04). It interviewed Dr. Phillip G. Zimbardo who did a famous 1971 study at Stanford University. In the study 24 participants were divided into prison guards and prisoners for two weeks. “Within days the guards had become swaggering and sadistic, to the point of placing bags over the prisoners’ heads, forcing them to strip naked and encouraging them to perform sexual acts. Dr. Zimbardo referred to Iraq and said “I was not surprised it happened. Prisons, where the balance of power is so unequal tend to be brutal and abusive places…” While Bush and company are blaming six soldiers and saying its all their fault the true cause is so much larger. When you send a huge army off to kill, and in a “War Against Terrorism” where getting information from the prisoners is the highest goals, then abuses will be constant if not actually part of the soldiers orders. As Dr. Zimbardo said “It’s not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches.”

As Khalid said about US soldiers when he got out of prison “They have hearts. They are humans, but you know, these are political things. Really nothing will change”.



*His name has been changed at his request due to his family’s fear of retribution.


Photos I took outside Abu Ghraib: http://indybay.org/news/2004/03/1672358.php

Original short article I wrote about Khalid from Iraq: http://indybay.org/news/2004/02/1669995.php

Articles and the pictures, if you haven’t seen them: http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/04/1679030.php

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Comments (Hide Comments)
by daveyt
i was teaching class today and a student asked " for what reasons iraqis are detained" in various iraqi prisons. looking for insight, articles, anything that i can print for her and have her read.

thanks ALOT
by repost
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1022-01.htm

Published on Monday, October 22, 2001 in the Times of London
FBI Considers Torture as Suspects Stay Silent
by Damian Whitworth
 
AMERICAN investigators are considering resorting to harsher interrogation techniques, including torture, after facing a wall of silence from jailed suspected members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, according to a report yesterday.

More than 150 people who were picked up after September 11 remain in custody, with four men the focus of particularly intense scrutiny. But investigators have found the usual methods have failed to persuade any of them to talk.

Options being weighed include “truth” drugs, pressure tactics and extraditing the suspects to countries whose security services are more used to employing a heavy-handed approach during interrogations.

“We’re into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking. Frustration has begun to appear,” a senior FBI official told The Washington Post.

Under US law, evidence extracted using physical pressure or torture is inadmissible in court and interrogators could also face criminal charges for employing such methods. However, investigators suggested that the time might soon come when a truth serum, such as sodium pentothal, would be deemed an acceptable tool for interrogators.

The public pressure for results in the war on terrorism might also persuade the FBI to encourage the countries of suspects to seek their extradition, in the knowledge that they could be given a much rougher reception in jails back home.
One of the four key suspects is Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan, suspected of being a twentieth hijacker who failed to make it on board the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Moussaoui was detained after he acted suspiciously at a Minnesota flying school, requesting lessons in how to steer a plane but not how to take off or land. Both Morocco and France are regarded as having harsher interrogation methods than the United States.

The investigators have been disappointed that the usual incentives to break suspects, such as promises of shorter sentences, money, jobs and new lives in the witness protection program, have failed to break the silence.

“We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck. Usually there is some incentive, some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . . where we don’t have a choice, and we are probably getting there,” an FBI agent involved in the investigation told the paper.

The other key suspects being held in New York are Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan, Indians who were caught the day after the attacks traveling with false passports, craft knives such as those used in the hijackings and hair dye. Nabil Almarabh, a Boston taxi driver alleged to have links to al-Qaeda, is also being held. Some legal experts believe that the US Supreme Court, which has a conservative tilt, might be prepared to support curtailing the civil liberties of prisoners in terrorism cases.

However, a warning that torture should be avoided came from Robert Blitzer, a former head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section. He said that the practice “goes against every grain in my body. Chances are you are going to get the wrong person and risk damage or killing them.”

In all, about 800 people have been rounded up since the attacks, most of whom are expected to be found to be innocent. Investigators believe there could be hundreds of people linked to al-Qaeda living in the US, and the Bush Administration has issued a warning that more attacks are probably being planned.

Newsweek magazine reports today that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader who died in the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, had been looking into hitting an aircraft carrier. Investigators retracing his movements found that he visited the huge US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, in February and April this year.
by repost
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&id=224232

Flashback - US Fails To Block UN Anti-Torture Vote Japan Today
7-25-2

UNITED NATIONS -- The United States failed to block a U.N. vote Wednesday on a plan to strengthen a treaty on torture, and was widely criticized by allies for trying to do so.

The United States argued that the measure, known as a protocol, could pave the way for international and independent visits to U.S. prisons and to terror suspects being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

The objective of the protocol is "to establish a system of regular visits undertaken by independent and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment."

The protocol to the treaty passed late Wednesday by a vote of 35-8 with 10 abstentions in the U.N. Economic and Social Council. The United States abstained.

A U.S. proposal to reopen 10 years of negotiations on the document was voted down 29-15 with the rest abstaining.

The protocol now moves to the General Assembly where it would need to be approved by a majority of the 190 member states. Then, it will require 20 ratifications before it can go into force.

However, if the United States chooses not to sign the document it will not be bound by it.

Denmark, which read a statement on behalf of the European Union, accused the United States of intentionally stalling in order to kill the proposal. Costa Rica, which sponsored the plan, "urged all delegations to vote against," the American request to reopen negotiations.

Human rights advocates and diplomats argued that the protocol was essential to enforce the international convention on torture passed 13 years ago and since ratified by about 130 countries, including the United States. Countries are supposed to enforce the convention on their own, but rights groups argue that that isn't working everywhere.

People were tortured or ill-treated by authorities in 111 countries last year, according to an Amnesty International report.

Technically, the protocol seeks visits to prisons as a way to help enforce the anti-torture convention, which the United States has ratified.

But the United States said elements of the plan were incompatible with the U.S. constitution. Privately, U.S. diplomats said allowing outside observers into state prisons would infringe on states' rights.

"The United States greatly regrets being put in the position of abstaining," U.S. Ambassador Sichan Siv said after the debate.

The protocol was widely supported among Western European and Latin American countries. The United States was supported by some countries accused by Amnesty International of torture, including Nigeria and Iran. Other U.S. support came from Japan, China, Cuba, Cyprus, India, Pakistan and Egypt.

The text was accepted in an April vote by the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The United States didn't participate in that vote because it lost its seat on the commission last year.

Activists had feared that if the United States succeeded in reopening the negotiations, it would mean a "death sentence" for the protocol.

Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch, said: "This is actually a great vote because the U.S. tried and failed."

Decisions by the Bush administration to back out of a protocol on climate control and talks on biological weapons have greatly frustrated its relationships at the United Nations.

On Monday, the administration cut support for the U.N. Population Fund, accusing the agency of sending money to Chinese agencies that carry out coercive programs involving abortion. The agency denies the accusation and a U.S. government fact-finding mission found no evidence that agency money was being used in such a way. (Compiled from news reports)

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