The United Nations’ Committee Against Torture was the latest
organization to comment on Iraq’s continued use of torture and secret prisons.
The committee made up of several experts reviewed Iraq’s history of abuse and
called for the government to stop the practice. They specifically mentioned one
secret facility at the Muthanna air base in Baghdad that was originally exposed
in 2010, which the government said it would close down, but is still up and
running to this day.
The United Nations’ committee called
on Baghdad to close down its secret detention centers. The U.N. said that
thousands of people were being
held in secret prisons, some for as long as ten years. High threat suspects
were routinely arrested without warrants and put into covert prisons run by the
Defense and Interior Ministries where they were held incommunicado and tortured
to obtain confessions. It wasn’t just high profile insurgents however that were
thrown into these jails and abused, but people rounded up in mass arrests as
well.
One specific secret location named by the committee was one
at the Muthanna Air Base in western Baghdad. The center is run by the 54th
Brigade of the 6th Army Division and the 56th Brigade,
also known as the Baghdad Brigade, which reports to the prime minister. In May
2010 the facility was first exposed. Human
Rights Watch interviewed 42 prisoners from the jail who said they were
tortured. At that time there were 6 women and 8 children being held there. Two
of the former were the wives of Islamic State leaders Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu
Masri who were arrested after their husbands were killed. Others however were
being detained to pressure their husbands who were also prisoners. In September,
Amnesty International added that more than 400 detainees were at Muthanna, and
confirmed the earlier Human Rights Watch claim that torture was used there.
This included electric shock, beatings, and rape by the guards. After this
exposure then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki denied that it was a covert prison
and that he was in control of it, but the Defense Ministry later confirmed that
he was. This facility has now been passed down to the Abadi administration,
which continues to use it.
Abuse has a long history in Iraq and is a lasting legacy of
the Saddam dictatorship. It is a common practice, accepted
by the courts, and carried out by all the post-2003 governments. Its
routine application is a direct threat to the democracy developing in the
country, yet there are no moves by the authorities to end it.
SOURCES
Amnesty International, “New order, same abuses: Unlawful
detentions and torture in Iraq,” September 2010
Arraf, Jane al-Dulaimy, Mohammed, “Witness: Secret Iraq
prison for women and children,” Christian Science Monitor, 5/26/10
Human
Rights Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations
Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, “Report on the
judicial response to allegations of torture in Iraq,” February 2015
Human Rights Watch, “Iraq: Secret Jail Uncovered in
Baghdad,” 2/1/11
International Crisis Group, “Loose Ends: Iraq’s Security
Forces Between U.S. Drawdown And Withdrawal,” 10/26/10
Nebehay, Stephanie, “U.N. urges Iraq to close secret
detention centres,” Reuters, 8/14/15
Parker, Ned, “Elite units under an office of Maliki’s linked
to secret jail where detainees face torture, Iraq officials say,” Los Angeles
Times, 7/14/11
- “The Iraq We Left Behind,” Foreign Affairs, March/April
2012
United Nations Human Rights, “Committee against Torture
considers the initial report of Iraq,” 7/30/15
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