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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Allegations of Abuse of Women Prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison |
| 2004-05-25 |
| From Khalifah .... it was actually a letter scribed by a woman prisoner that first exposed what was going on in the infamous prison. The contents of a note that was smuggled out of the prison were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the jail found them hard to believe. It claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq". In November 2003, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. âShe was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped,â Swadi says. âSeveral American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, âWe have daughters and husbands. For Godâs sake donât tell anyone about this.ââ During Swadiâs visit to Abu Ghraib in March, one of the prisoners told her that she had been forced to undress in front of US soldiers. âThe Iraqi translator turned his head in embarrassment,â she said. The Taguba inquiry has corroborated the contents of the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor". The enquiry found the letter to be entirely in line with the activities going on within the prison. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humiliation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees have also been abused. Among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there are, according to Tagubaâs report, images of a US military policeman âhaving sexâ with an Iraqi woman. Taguba discovered that guards have also videotaped and photographed naked female detainees. Bush refused to release other photographs of Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although Congress were shown them) - ostensibly to prevent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq. However in reality this is merely to prevent further domestic embarrassment. Earlier this month it emerged that an Iraqi woman in her 70s had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. UK Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who investigated the case and found it to be true, said, âShe was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey.â Several women are housed in solitary confinement, within cells 2.5m long by 1.5m wide. There remain extremely troubling questions as to why these women came to be classified as âsecurity detaineesâ - a term invented by the Crusaders to justify the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the war on terror. According to Swadi, who managed to visit Abu Ghraib in late March, the allegations against the women are "absurd". "One of them is supposed to be the mistress of the former director of the Mukhabarat. In fact, sheâs a widow who used to own a small shop. She also worked as a taxi driver, ferrying children to and from kindergarten. If she really had a relationship with the director of the Mukhabarat, she would scarcely be running a kiosk. These are baseless charges," she adds angrily. "She is the only person who can provide for her children." The women appear to have been arrested - not because of anything they have done, but merely because of who they are married to, and their potential intelligence value. US officials have previously acknowledged detaining Iraqi women in the hope of convincing male relatives to provide information; when US soldiers raid a house and fail to find a male suspect, they will frequently take away his wife or daughter instead. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #4 So tired of these damned Arab lies. NOWHERE in the Taguba report is there mention of anyone -- man, woman or child -- being raped. |
| Posted by: growler 2004-05-25 10:17:33 AM |
| #3 she was insulted and told she was a donkey You ass! |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-05-25 9:04:16 AM |
| #2 "From Khalifah" Ah! Overlooked that. The verdict is now set in stone. |
| Posted by: rsd 2004-05-25 6:10:28 AM |
| #1 "a term invented by the Crusaders" Interesting choice of a label... which marks the entire article as suspicious propaganda. I don't need even two buckets of salt, it goes straight to garbage bin. |
| Posted by: rsd 2004-05-25 6:08:42 AM |