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Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Amnesty International weighs in on the detention of Iraqis by the U.S. military. 

Are we mistreating detainees in Iraq? Considering that there will be many more such detainees, because of Operation Sidewinder, Amnesty International's recent report of Iraqi detainees ought to be ringing alarm bells for all concerned with human rights. From the BBC:

Amnesty International expressed particular concern about the conditions in which detainees are held.

The group said prisoners were bound so tightly with plastic handcuffs that many still showed scars on their wrists a month after their arrest.

"We spent our first night in custody lying on the ground in a school. We had no access to a toilet and were given no food or water," said a former prisoner quoted by Amnesty International.

The group warned that a two-tier system was evolving, with prisoners in the Iraqi legal system being afforded proper protection while those in military detention were not.

"Some detainees fall into a 'black hole' detention centre at the [Baghdad International] airport; their family has no news of them and they are only entitled to a review of their detention within three weeks by a US military lawyer," the group said in a statement.


Amnesty criticised US search methods
"Others arrested for similar offences are taken to Iraqi police stations and receive the protection of the procedures in the... Criminal Procedure Code... They are entitled to release if there is insufficient evidence against them," it added.

The group collected testimony from former detainees for its statement.

"We spent our first night in custody lying on the ground in a school. We had no access to a toilet and were given no food or water," one of four brothers who was hooded and handcuffed on detention told the group.

Amnesty says that there has been looting as Iraqis are detained.

The human rights campaigners urged the US to give detainees access to family and lawyers and to investigate reports of mistreatment of prisoners, including death in custody.

Amnesty International wrote to the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, with its concerns last week. A spokesman said the group had not yet received a reply.


# posted by scorpiorising : 7:28 AM |

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