Ending Prisoner abuse in Iraq by Human Rights Watch / Red Cross / UN News 10:48am 8th May, 2004   10 May, 2004    Red Cross details abuse claims (BBC World News)    A report by the Red Cross (ICRC) on the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by coalition forces has been published on the website of the Wall Street Journal.    The report refers to "serious violations of international humanitarian law" by coalition forces. It catalogues ill-treatment by coalition soldiers - including some which resulted in deaths of inmates. The confidential report had been given to US and UK officials in February.    The Red Cross inspected jails in Iraq between May and November 2003 and made 29 visits to prison facilities in central and southern Iraq during that time.    The report says abuses had been committed at a number of facilities - not just Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, which is the focus of allegations against US soldiers. Other facilities where mistreatment allegedly occurred include al-Baghdadi air base, Hubbania camp, Tikrit holding area, the defence ministry and a presidential palace in Baghdad.    The allegations include:    * Prisoners were kept naked in cells, in darkness and without facilities    * Prisoners were held for prolonged solitary confinement in cells with no daylight    * The actions of coalition forces in arresting suspects appeared to go beyond any legitimate use of force    * Prisoners were beaten, in one case leading to death    * Soldiers fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers, killing some    * The ill-treatment was widely tolerated, especially with regard to extracting information from Iraqis    * Methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence to gain confessions    The report concludes there have been serious violations of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war.    The report also criticises the way in which arrests were made and says detentions tended to follow a pattern. "Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property," it says.    "Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people," it continues. "Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."    The report also says some troops told the Red Cross that 70% to 90% of those detained had been arrested by mistake.    The 24-page document, confirmed by the ICRC as authentic following its publication in the Wall Street Journal, says the abuses were primarily during the interrogation stage by military intelligence officers. It says once the detainees were moved to regular prison facilities the abuses typically stopped.    Some military intelligence personnel told the Red Cross that widespread ill-treatment was due to a lack of supervision by military police. Officers also said it was part of the military intelligence process to hold prisoners naked, in the dark, for prolonged periods, and to use inhumane treatment to try to secure their co-operation    30 April 2004    UN Secretary-General 'Deeply Disturbed' by media images of Iraqi Prisoners being Mistreated. (UN News)    United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is "deeply disturbed" by images appearing in the media of Iraqi prisoners being mistreated and humiliated by United States prison guards, his spokesman said today.    The Secretary-General "hopes that this was an isolated incident and welcomes what appears to be a clear determination on the part of the US military to bring those responsible to justice, and to prevent such abuses in the future," spokesman Fred Eckhard said.    On Wednesday the CBS programme 60 Minutes II first aired a report about alleged abuses occurring at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq.    "In all circumstances, and in all places, the Secretary-General is strongly opposed to the mistreatment of detainees," Mr. Eckhard told the daily briefing. "He reiterates that all detainees should be fully protected in accordance with the provisions of international human rights law."    When asked by reporters yesterday about the programme, Mr. Eckhard said, "The kinds of things discussed there, the abuse of prisoners, could be the kind of thing that would be investigated or would be included in a report on human rights in Iraq that the Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights [Bertrand Ramcharan] said last Friday he intended to produce."    Mr. Ramcharan's remarks came at the closing session of the Commission on Human Rights, when he said he would initiate a report on rights and armed conflict in Iraq after the Commission had puzzlingly excluded it in its decisions. "It is a perplexing and troubling omission. There must be accountability in warfare. At this point in time there is no international monitoring of the human rights situation in Iraq, whether it be in respect of terrorism or in respect of the use of force and the treatment of civilians," he said.    Conflicts are prevalent in the world and the Commission had effectively elaborated a policy on ensuring respect for human rights and international humanitarian law during armed conflicts, he said.    May 3, 2004    "Ending Torture", by Reed Brody, Human Rights Watch. (Published in the International Herald Tribune).    We must all—like President George W. Bush—share a "deep disgust" at the pictures of U.S. military personnel subjecting Iraqi detainees to humiliating treatment. The problem, however, is that this does not appear to be an isolated incident.    Across the world, the United States is holding detainees in offshore and foreign prisons where allegations of mistreatment cannot be monitored. It has also been accused of sending terror suspects to countries where information has been beaten out of them.    The classic case, of course, has been Guantánamo, Cuba, which the Bush administration deliberately chose as a detention facility for more than 700 detainees from 44 countries in an attempt to put them beyond the reach of the U.S. courts—and of any courts, for that matter. The U.S. government has argued that U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction over these detainees, even if they were being tortured or summarily executed.    But Guantánamo may not be the worst problem; indeed, it may even be a diversion from more extreme situations. Perhaps out of concern that Guantánamo will eventually be monitored by the U.S. courts, the Bush administration does not hold its most sensitive and high-profile detainees there. Terrorism suspects like Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are detained instead in undisclosed locations outside the United States, with no access to Red Cross or other visits.    In Iraq, we now have pictures of American soldiers degrading captives. The brazenness with which the soldiers conducted themselves, snapping photographs and flashing the "thumbs-up" sign as they abused prisoners, suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors. Indeed, there are now reports that their higher-ups in military intelligence urged such behavior to create better conditions for interrogation.    This is all the more disturbing because the United States has failed to provide clear information on its treatment of 10,000 civilians held in Iraq—and has provided no information at all for at least 200 so-called "high-security detainees."    In Afghanistan, the United States is also holding civilians in a legal black hole at a number of off-limits detention facilities—with no tribunals, no legal counsel and no family visits.    Human Rights Watch has presented compelling evidence that there, too, U.S. personnel have committed inhumane and degrading acts against detainees. Released detainees have said that U.S. forces severely beat them, doused them with cold water and subjected them to freezing temperatures. Three people have died in U.S. custody there, and two of the deaths were ruled homicides by U.S. military doctors who performed autopsies. The Department of Defense has yet to explain adequately the circumstances of any of these deaths.    And then there are the so-called "renditions" of suspects to countries where they are tortured. In one case, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian in transit from a family vacation through John F. Kennedy airport in New York, was detained by U.S officials and sent, against his wishes, to Syria—a country where torture is systematic. There, Arar was interrogated and, he alleges, tortured repeatedly during a 10-month confinement in an underground dungeon before returning to Canada.    The Bush administration still has not answered charges leveled in The Washington Post which, citing numerous unnamed U.S. officials, described the rendition of captured Al Qaeda suspects from U.S. custody to other countries—such as Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco—where they were tortured or mistreated. These countries, like Syria, are ones where the United States itself has criticized the practice of torture.    The sordid photos from Iraq and reports that the behavior was actually encouraged confirm that systematic changes in the U.S. treatment of prisoners are needed immediately. The United States must finally investigate and publicly report on allegations of abuse by its forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as persistent accounts that suspects sent to other countries have been tortured.    From Guantánamo to Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States must also ensure that people taken into custody are fairly treated in accordance with international legal standards, such as the Geneva conventions. In particular, it must stop holding detainees in legal "black holes" where conduct cannot be monitored.
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