Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Iraq.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Iraq. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iraq U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/iraq/
[accessed 25 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Human rights
organizations reported that both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense
personnel tortured detainees. UNAMI/OHCHR reported that some detained
protesters were subjected to various mistreatment during interrogation,
including severe beatings, electric shocks, hosing or bathing in cold water,
being hung from the ceiling by the arms and legs, death threats and threats
to their families, as well as degrading treatment (such as being urinated on
or being photographed naked). In the same report, women interviewees
described being beaten and threatened with rape and sexual assault. A local
NGO in June reported that dozens of torture cases were recorded in detention
centers in Ninewa, Salah al-Din, Kirkuk, Anbar, Dhi Qar, and Baghdad. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison and
detention center conditions were harsh and occasionally life threatening due
to food shortages, gross overcrowding, physical abuse, inadequate sanitary
conditions and medical care, and the threat of COVID-19 and other
communicable illnesses. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Human rights
organizations reported that government forces, including the ISF (including
the Federal Police), NSS, PMF, Peshmerga, and Asayish,
frequently ignored the law. Local media and human rights groups reported that
authorities arrested suspects in security sweeps without warrants,
particularly under the antiterrorism law, and frequently held such detainees
for prolonged periods without charge or registration. Boys released from
Kurdistan prisons face rearrest, torture in Iraq:
Report ERBIL (Kurdistan
24), 23 December 2018 www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/c2bb4869-8ff3-4ce4-b34e-a27e75018ab3 [accessed 23
December 2018] One, who HRW called
"Karim" to protect his identity, told of being rearrested by Iraqi
forces after being released by the KRG and returning to his village outside Mosul.
He was held for 45 days, during which he was tortured. He was then
transferred to a prison at Baghdad International Airport where officers beat
him four times with plastic pipes before he finally was taken to a courtroom. He was released
after he told a judge he had been tortured during interrogations after
already serving a full sentence at a reformatory in Erbil. Others monitoring
the situation of the boys told HRW that they knew of at least five who had
returned home and were rearrested but had not been seen since. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/iraq/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 17 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION
FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND
INSURGENCIES? The use of torture
to obtain confessions is widespread, including in death penalty cases. In
2018, the government continued to expedite executions of those convicted of
terrorism. Detainees are often held in harsh, overcrowded conditions, and
forced disappearances, particularly of suspected IS fighters, have been
reported. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] IRAQ ABUSES BY SECURITY
FORCES AND GOVERNMENT-BACKED MILITIAS - In March, former Prime Minister
al-Maliki told senior security advisers that he would form a new security
force consisting of three militias: Asa’ib, Kita’ib Hezbollah, and the Badr
Brigades. These militias kidnapped and murdered Sunni civilians throughout
Baghdad, Diyala, and Hilla
provinces, at a time when the armed conflict between government forces and
Sunni insurgents was intensifying. According to witnesses and medical and
government sources, pro-government militias were responsible for the killing
of 61 Sunni men between June 1 and July 9, 2014, and the killing of at least
48 Sunni men in March and April in villages and towns in an area known as the
“Baghdad Belt.” Dozens of residents of five towns in the Baghdad Belt said
that security forces, alongside governmentbacked
militias, attacked their towns, kidnapping and killing residents and setting
fire to their homes, livestock, and crops. A survivor of an
attack on a Sunni mosque in eastern Diyala province
in August said that members of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq entered the mosque
during the Friday prayer, shot and killed the imam, and then opened fire on
the other men in the mosque, killing at least 70 people. Three other Diyala residents reported that Asa’ib
Ahl al-Haqq had kidnapped
and killed their relatives. Iraqi security forces and militias affiliated
with the government were responsible for the unlawful execution of at least
255 prisoners in six Iraqi cities and towns in June. The vast majority of
security forces and militias are Shia, while the murdered prisoners were
Sunni. At least eight of those killed were boys under age 18. Iraq illegally
Jailed thousands of Women, Torture & Abuse Alleged Juan Cole, Human
Rights Watch HRW, Baghdad, 11 Feb. 2014 www.juancole.com/2014/02/illegally-thousands-alleged.html [accessed 16
February 2014] Iraqi authorities
are detaining thousands of Iraqi women illegally and subjecting many to
torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse. Iraq’s weak
judiciary, plagued by corruption, frequently bases convictions on coerced
confessions, and trial proceedings fall far short of international standards.
Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before
seeing a judge. Iraqi Women 'Tortured
And Raped' In Detention Zein Ja'Far, Sky
News, 6 February 2014 news.sky.com/story/1207337/iraqi-women-tortured-and-raped-in-detention [accessed 7 Feb
2014] news.sky.com/story/iraqi-women-tortured-and-raped-in-detention-10418405 [accessed 31
December 2017] "A man
handcuffed both my hands and feet, and made me lay on my stomach. He took my
clothes off and started to hit my face and my eyes." Fatima alleges she was later coerced into
confessing to a crime she didn't commit.
"You've just been raped, beaten and insulted and then they say
they will do the same to her daughter if you don't confess what they tell
you. "What can you do then? You
will surely say you have committed those crimes. You will say whatever they
want to protect your child." One detainee,
waiting on death row in a Baghdad prison, told the organisation she needed
crutches after enduring more than a week of beatings and electric
shocks. Despite subsequent medical
reports supporting her allegations of torture she was executed seven months
later. Torture and
hangings a trademark of Maliki's reign World Bulletin /
News Desk, 27 Jan 2014 www.worldbulletin.net/world/127733/torture-and-hangings-a-trademark-of-malikis-reign [accessed 28 Jan
2014] One particular
detainee on death row is Saudi national Abdullah al-Qahtani, who was jailed
for an armed robbery on a goldsmith’s shop in November 2009. He was accused
of carrying out the robbery to fund terrorism. However, Abdullah
al-Qahtani was later proven to have already been in police custody between
October 2009 and April 2010 on immigration charges, so it would have been
impossible for him to have carried out the robbery. Despite this being stated
in official government papers, his hanging still looms. As he currently
waits to be taken to the execution chamber, his lawyer has reported to the
Independent’s Robert Fisk that al-Qahtani has been subjected to torture,
including being hung up by the wrists and beaten with a broom stick. He also
has cigarette burns on his body. Furthermore, his
lawyer stated that even though all of his co-defendants later retracted their
confessions due to it having been given under torture, all of them were
executed regardless. Maliki's Iraq:
Rape, Executions and Torture Dahr Jamail, Al
Jazeera | Report, 21 March 2013 truth-out.org/news/item/15246-malikis-iraq-rape-executions-and-torture [accessed 22 March
2013] One Iraqi woman,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said her nephew was first detained when
he was just 18. Held under the infamous Article Four which gives the
government the ability to arrest anyone "suspected" of terrorism,
he was charged with terrorism. She told, in detail, of how her nephew was
treated: "They beat him
with metal pipes, used harsh curse words and swore against his sect and his
Allah (because he is Sunni) and why God was not helping him, and that they
would bring up the prisoners' mothers and sisters to rape them," she
explained to Al Jazeera. "Then they used electricity to burn different
places of his body. They took all his cloths off in winter and left them
naked out in the yard to freeze." Her nephew, who was
released after four years imprisonment after the Iraqi appeals court deemed
him innocent, was then arrested 10 days after his release, again under
Article 4. This law gives the government of Prime Minister Maliki broad
license to detain Iraqis. Article four and other laws provide the government
the ability to impose the death penalty for nearly 50 crimes, including
terrorism, kidnapping, and murder, but also for offenses such as damage to
public property. While her nephew
was free, he informed his aunt of how he and other detainees were tortured. "They made
some other inmates stand barefoot during Iraq's summer on burning concrete pavement
to have sunburn, and without drinking water until they fainted. They took
some of them, broke so many of their bones, mutilated their faces with a
knife and threw them back in the cell to let the others know that this is
what will happen to them." She said her nephew
was tortured daily, as he wouldn't confess to a crime he says he didn't
commit. He wouldn't give names of his co-conspirators, as there were none,
she said. "Finally,
after the death of many of his inmates under torture, he agreed to sign up a
false confession written by the interrogators, even though he had witnesses
who have seen him in another place the day that crime has happened," she
added. He remains in
prison, where he has told his aunt he is now being tortured by militiamen and
one of his eyes has been lanced by them. Iraq: A Broken
Justice System Human Rights Watch,
Baghdad www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/31/iraq-broken-justice-system [accessed 31 January
2013] TEN YEARS AFTER
INVASION, OPPONENTS PUNISHED, TRIAL RIGHTS IGNORED The number of
violent civilian deaths in Iraq increased in 2012, for the first time since
2009. Thousands of civilians and police were killed in spates of violence, including
targeted assassinations, amid a political crisis that has dragged on since
December 2011. Alongside the uptick in violence, Iraqi security forces
arbitrarily conducted mass arrests and tortured detainees to extract
confessions with little or no evidence of wrongdoing. Most recently, in
November, federal police invaded 11 homes in the town of al-Tajji, north of
Baghdad, and detained 41 people, including 29 children, overnight in their
homes. Sources close to the detainees, who requested anonymity, said police
took 12 women and girls ages 11 to 60 to 6th Brigade headquarters and held
them there for four days without charge. The sources said the police beat the
women and tortured them with electric shocks and plastic bags placed over
their heads until they began to suffocate. Despite widespread
outcry over abuse and rape of women in pre-trial detention, the government
has not investigated or held the abusers accountable. In response to mass
protests over the treatment of female detainees, Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki issued a pardon for 11 detainees. However, hundreds more women
remain in detention, many of whom allege they have been tortured and have not
had access to a proper defense. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT Torture and other
ill-treatment were common and widespread in prisons and detention centres, particularly those controlled by the Ministries
of the Interior and Defence, and were committed
with impunity. Methods included suspension by the limbs for long periods,
beatings with cables and hosepipes, the infliction of electric shocks,
breaking of limbs, partial asphyxiation with plastic bags, and sexual abuse
including threats of rape. Torture was used to extract information from
detainees and “confessions” that could be used as evidence against them at
trial. Nabhan ‘Adel Hamid, Mu’ad Muhammad ‘Abed, ‘Amer
Ahmad Kassar and Shakir
Mahmoud ‘Anad were arrested in Ramadi and Fallujah
at the end of March/early April. They were reported to have been tortured
while held incommunicado for several weeks at the Directorate of
Counter-Crime in Ramadi. Their “confessions” were then broadcast on local
television. When brought to trial, they told the Anbar Criminal Court that
they had been forced under torture to “confess” to assisting in murder.
Witness testimony of fellow detainees supported their torture allegations. A
medical examination of one defendant recorded burns and injuries consistent
with torture. Despite this, all four men were sentenced to death on 3
December. No independent investigation into their torture allegations was
known to have been held. DEATHS IN CUSTODY Several detainees
died in custody in circumstances suggesting that torture or other
ill-treatment caused or contributed to their deaths. ‘Amer Sarbut Zaidan
al-Battawi, a former bodyguard of Vice-President
al-Hashemi, died in detention in March. His family
alleged that marks on his body had been caused by torture. Authorities denied
that his death was caused by torture and announced further investigations. Samir Naji ‘Awda al-Bilawi, a pharmacist, and his 13-year-old son, Mundhir, were detained by security forces at a vehicle
checkpoint in Ramadi in September. Three days later, his family learned that
Samir Naji ‘Awda al-Bilawi had died in custody. Images they released to Iraqi
media showed injuries to his head and both hands. Following his release, Mundhir said he and his father had been assaulted at a
police station then taken to the Directorate of Counter-Crime in Ramadi and
tortured, including with electric shocks. He said he was ordered to tell an
investigating judge that his father was connected to a terrorist
organization. Lawyers for the family were allowed to read but not copy an
official autopsy report that reportedly said Samir Naji
‘Awda al-Bilawi’s death
was due to torture, including electric shocks. No action was known to have
been taken against those responsible by the end of the year: ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/iraq [accessed 31 January
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 12 May
2020] The criminal
procedure code and the constitution prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention,
though both practices are common in security-related cases. There have been
credible reports of illegal detention facilities run by the Interior Ministry
and party-sponsored militias. The constitution prohibits all forms of torture
and inhumane treatment and affords victims the right to compensation, but
neither coalition nor Iraqi authorities have established effective safeguards
against the mistreatment of detainees. Allegations of torture by security
services have been serious and widespread. KRG laws similarly prohibit
inhumane treatment of detainees, but it is widely acknowledged that Kurdish
security forces practice illegal detention and questionable interrogation
tactics. Detainees in coalition custody have also experienced torture and
mistreatment. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61689.htm [accessed 31 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61689.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The TAL
expressly prohibits torture in all its forms under all circumstances, as well
as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. However, security forces employed
such practices. Insurgents and terrorists frequently committed torture and
other abuses (see section 1.g.). According to a January
Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, police torture and ill treatment of
detainees was commonplace. In interviews with 90 prisoners, 72 asserted that
they had been tortured or mistreated. The reported abuses included beatings
with cables and hosepipes, electric shocks to earlobes and genitals, food and
water deprivation, and overcrowding in standing-room-only cells. On February 6, Baktiar Amin, the former minister of human rights, noted
to then prime minister Allawi that detention centers under the MOI's control
were a "theater of violations of human rights." In addition to poor
living conditions and arrests and detentions carried out without judicial
orders, the minister stated that the MOI systematically tortured and abused
detainees. Specific violations were attributed to personnel of the Major
Crimes Unit, the Intelligence Directorate, and local police. On November 13, an
overcrowded MOI detention center in Baghdad was discovered. This facility,
the Jadiriyah Bunker, held 169 detainees, mostly
Sunnis, many of whom showed signs of torture and abuse. A number of the
detainees were severely malnourished and said that police had only given them
bread to eat for several months. The facility was shut down, and the
detainees were subsequently transferred to a Ministry of Justice (MOJ)
prison. In December the IIT
conducted three unannounced inspections. On December 8, officials
investigated a second MOI facility, the Iraqi Police Commando Division
Central Facility for Baghdad. This police station building held 625 detainees
in conditions so crowded that detainees were unable to lie down at the same
time. According to press reports, a government official with first-hand
knowledge said that at least 12 prisoners had been subjected to severe
torture with electric shock, had fingernails torn out, and suffered broken
bones from beatings. Due to the severe abuse, 13 of the detainees were
referred for medical care. Sixty prisoners were recommended for immediate
release, and 75 were moved to an MOJ detention facility. While no
confirmation was available at year's end, detainees claimed that six of their
group had died in custody. The IIT assessment
of all three sites indicated inadequate living conditions, health services
and legal access. At one of the sites IIT found evidence of recent physical
abuse and torture. IIT submitted three separate reports with recommendations
to the prime minister's office. Police abuses
included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs,
as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords, and the application
of electric shocks. Reportedly, police threatened or, in fact, sexually
abused detainees. For example, a
woman detained in the Diwaniyah police station claimed in early May that police
had administered electric shocks to the soles of her feet and threatened to
abuse sexually her teenage daughters if she did not provide the information
they demanded. On October 14,
Najaf security forces arrested an associate of the former provincial governor
and allegedly tortured him in an effort to obtain a confession. The arrested
individual reportedly appeared at his court hearing the following day, unable
to walk. MOI officials agreed to open an investigation of the case, but no
information has been made available. The individual remained in custody at
year's end. According to the
MOJ's Iraqi Corrections Service (ICS) officials, prisoners routinely
exhibited signs of mistreatment upon transfer from police custody to the
prisons. ICS investigated or referred to MOI 14 cases of police abuse during
the year, some of which involved torture. For example, officials at Baghdad's
Rusafa intake facility reported on February 8 that
medical staff treated an inmate for injuries following his transfer from police
custody. The inmate said he had been interrogated by police at the Kadamiya police station following arrest on a murder
charge. The inmate stated that police severely beat him during the
interrogation and told him that he would be killed if he spoke of the abuse.
On June 27, a medical examination of a new prisoner at Baghdad's Rusafa intake facility revealed a leg broken in two
places. The man told officials that police had broken his leg while he was in
their custody. Some detainees in
military custody alleged abuse that included hanging inmates upside down
until they lost consciousness, beating with wooden and plastic sticks,
weapons, and electric cords, and the use of electric shocks and stun guns. Two men reported
that military personnel detained and beat them on May 6 and 11, respectively,
in Iskandariyah. On July 7, the Army detained a man
in Tikrit, who reported he was blindfolded and his hands and ankles bound
before he was hung by a rope from the ceiling. He was beaten with a cable for
approximately 10 minutes before being doused with cold water. On July 23, the
Army detained another man near Tal Afar, reportedly beating him with an iron
pipe for 30 minutes during the interrogation. Also in July, army
officers in Tikrit reportedly blindfolded, handcuffed, and beat a detainee on
his head and back with a rifle butt. He was then suspended from the ceiling
with bound ankles and struck repeatedly across the legs with a cable. A
medical examination confirmed abrasions, swelling, and bruising consistent with
the detainee's claims. In August army
officials reportedly detained a man in the Saqlawiyah
area, beating him before suspending him from a ceiling fan by his bound
ankles. Kurdish security
forces committed abuses against non-Kurdish minorities in the North,
including Christians, Shabak, Turcomen,
and Arabs. Abuse ranged from threats and intimidation to detention in
undisclosed locations without due process (see section 1.d.). Verification or
assessment of credibility of claimed torture and abuses by KRG officials was
extremely difficult. The press reported that police tortured a Turcoman
vegetable seller after he was arrested on March 17 and taken to the Megdad KRG police station. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Iraq", http://gvnet.com/torture/Iraq.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
