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Monday, 24 October 2011
Amnesty International unveils Maliki’s government prison scandal
Human rights group Amnesty International (AI)slammed at Nouri al-Maliki’s-led government in Baghdad for operating secret prisons in which detainees are "systematically tortured" to extract confessions that are used to convict them. In a report issued Tuesday, the London-based group said the Iraqi ministries of interior and defense operate detention facilities - some secret - in which the abuses are being carried. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has denied that his government runs secret prisons and the reports published by the Los Angeles Times and Human Rights Watch are untrue, he saidl. AI said it had documented various examples of torture in Iraqi prisons in recent years, including rape, the threat of rape, beatings with cables and hosepipes and electric shocks. It says Iraqi prisoners also have been subjected to suspension by the limbs, piercing the body with drills, asphyxiation with plastic bags, removal of toenails with pliers, and breaking of limbs. Iraqi security forces have committed such abuses against children, women and men, leading to the deaths of dozens of detainees since 2004, according to the organization’s report entitled “Broken Bodies, Broken Minds”. The rights group said about 30,000 men and women remain in custody in Iraq. It says there is "every likelihood that torture and ill-treatment will remain widespread" because Iraq's government is pre-occupied with continuing violence, a ruined infrastructure, widespread poverty and an ailing economy. The 12-page report offered a grim view of prison conditions in Iraq, describing state-run detention cells as breeding grounds for systematic torture and sickness. U.S. occupying forces turned over full control of prisoners to Iraq’s government last year, "without any guarantees that they will be protected," the Amnesty report states. In a statement, Iraqi Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi said protecting human rights and democracy in Iraq is the only way to ensure it will not revert to a dictatorship."The issue of human rights is a major challenge because of political parties that do not want to ensure these rights in Iraq," al-Nujaifi said. Amongst the estimated 30,000 men and women are currently in Iraqi custody, there are about 1,300 on death row. There is every likelihood that torture and ill-treatment will remain widespread," AI report concluded. Maliki’s secret prison scandal surfaced during the past months posing a challenge to the Iraqi government already stumbling to maintain security and stability in the country. Amnesty said the number of tortured detainees contained in its report is much higher than the 509 cases of abuse mentioned in a document by the so-called Ministry of Human rights in Iraq. Tuesday’s report followed a similar charge last week by Human Rights Watch that accused elite Iraqi troops controlled by al-Maliki’s office of holding prisoners at a secret jail and torturing inmates at another facility. Reporting from Baghdad on 19th of last April , US Los Angeles Times said hundreds of men disappeared for months into a Al Muthanna secret prison in Baghdad under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's military office, where many were routinely tortured.
Labels:
Amnesty International,
Maliki
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