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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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April 30th,
2009 - UN Human Rights Report: Torture and Detention Without Charge in Iraq |
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UN Human
Rights Report: Torture and Detention Without Charge in Iraq By Larry Kaplow Newsweek April 30, 2009 A new United Nations report
on human rights in Iraq cites Iraqi prisons for continued torture of
detainees, incarceration for months without charges and warns, as it has in
the past, that “security may not be sustainable unless significant steps are
taken in the area of human rights such as strengthening the rule of law and
addressing impunity.” The report covers mainly the last half of 2008. Some of the main points,
written in the typically understated voice of the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI): - The report found 26,249
people being held in Iraq prisons in December. It said they faced “months or
even years in overcrowded cells” and many had not been formally charged. - The agency found, “that
the use of torture as an interrogation method and the ill-treatment of
detainees remains a serious challenge to Iraq’s criminal justice system.” It
says there is no known case in which any official in the powerful Ministry of
Defense, which has its own jails, “has been held accountable for human rights
abuses.” - When UN officials told a
senior police officer in the western city of Ramadi that Iraq was adopting an
international convention against torture, he replied, “How are we going to
get confessions? We have to force the criminals to confess and how are we
going to do that now?” - The report singled out
jails in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region for poor treatment including
beatings and electric shock. - Kurdistan also came under
fire for its high rate of so-called “honor killings” of women and the many
cases of women burned or coerced into suicide in honor cases. - Speaking of Iraq in
general, the report said, “the vast majority of women still face at least one
form of domestic violence.” - The UN found that the
amnesty law, passed at the insistence of the U.S. in attempt to foster
reconciliation, has had little of its intended affect, with it only resulting
in the release from jail about 7,500 from prison (the report said 127,431
were eligible, though it was not clear if that included people facing arrest
warrants but not in prison). - It faulted U.S. forces for
detaining people “for prolonged periods without judicial review.” The report
cited no other mistreatment of detainees in U.S. detention. - The report urged U.S.
officials to continue investigations into two shootings by guards for the
American embassy working for Blackwater Worldwide (the firm now goes by the
name Xe). - It noted the Sept. 16,
2007 killing of 17 people by a Blackwater convoy in a Baghdad traffic circle.
(One of the guards has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a U.S. court and
five others face charges. The company has said the guards were acting in
self-defense). - The report also said an
embassy official told the UN that guards for the company allegedly killed a
75-year-old Iraqi in traffic after the man came close to the company's
convoy. The embassy official told the UN the case had been referred to the
U.S. Department of Justice. A spokeswoman for Xe told NEWSWEEK the company
was reviewing the report but has "no indication that the company or its
personnel were involved in an incident like the one described." - The number of people
killed in violence is still high but decreasing, according to the Iraqi
government, which stopped releasing the figures when things were the worst in
2007. The UN reported Iraqi figures showing 6,787 civilians and security
forces were killed in all of 2008, with 20,178 wounded - down from 34,542
killed and 36,685 wounded in 2006. It tallied 102 suicide attacks in 2008. - The report noted concern
over continued attacks against Christian and other religious or ethnic
minorities. It made no mention of killings of gay Iraqis, which have been
widely reported in the media, but it did criticize the jailing in Kurdistan
of a doctor who had published an article about health issues related to gay
sex. External link: http://tinyurl.com/djx8vw |