[xtypo_dropcap]T[/xtypo_dropcap]ens of thousands of people are being held without trial in Iraqi prisons—many of them veterans of the U.S. detention system, according to a report by Amnesty International.
In a damning picture of the human rights situation in Iraq, the report claims that torture is widespread in Iraqi jails, and that arbitrary arrest remains common.
Up to 30,000 mostly Sunni Muslims are detained without trial in the country, often for periods of up to two years, and 10,000 of those were previously within U.S. custody.
The Amnesty report, named "New Order, Same Abuses; Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq," draws parallels with some of the worst abuses carried out under the previous government of Saddam Hussein.
It comes at a time where the U.S. is preparing a full withdrawal from Iraq—a country which western diplomats describe as being on the verge of transition into a healthy democracy.
“Iraq’s security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees’ rights and they have been permitted to do so with impunity,” said Malcolm Smart, the Middle East and North Africa Director for Amnesty International.
“Yet, the U.S. authorities, whose own record on detainees' rights has been so poor, have now handed over thousands of people detained by U.S. forces to face this catalogue of illegality, violence and abuse, abdicating any responsibility for their human rights.”
Over the past year, some 60,000 U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq and another 49,000 are scheduled to leave over the next 15 months.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said that Iraq’s security apparatus was “functioning at least as well if not better than any of us had anticipated.”
However, according to Amnesty, torture remains widespread across the country’s jails, especially in obtaining ‘confessions’ from detainees.
The report highlights the case of one prisoner—Riyadh Mohammad Saleh al-‘Uqaibi, a 54-year-old father who was beaten so hard he died of internal injuries on February 12.
Iraqi authorities remain secretive over the location of prison facilities. The existence of a secret prison facility in the Muthanna airport in Baghdad was revealed in April only after an investigation by the L.A. Times.
One of the detainees of that facility is 68-year-old British Iraqi, Ramze Shihab Ahmed, who was detained in the country after trying to free his son.
He told his wife that he has suffered torture such as electric shocks to his genitals and suffocation by plastic bags.
His wife Rabiha al-Qassab, a 63-year-old former teaching assistant, is pressing the U.K. government to secure her husband’s release.
“What my husband has suffered at the hands of his interrogators is inhumane and sickening. I’m desperately worried about him,” she was quoted as saying in the Amnesty report.
“He already had health problems before all this and was very brave to return to Iraq on behalf of his son ‘Omar in the first place.
“I’d like to see the U.K. government stepping up efforts to get Ramze released or at least given a fair trial if there’s anything that could reasonably be held against him. The Iraqi authorities should either try or release him – not go through this disgusting charade of torture and false confessions.
“I know that Ramze is far from being the only person unfairly imprisoned in Iraq, but because he’s British at least the U.K. can try to do something about them.”
