Iraq's Political Prisoners.

The following are excerpts from an Urgent Appeal addressed to Ban Ki Moon of the United Nations on behalf of the hundreds of Iraqi detainees in US custody.


While the Americans claim that the number of Iraqi detainees in their camps is not more than 10'000 or so, maybe even less, the reality is far different...


And I shall quote from the text which can be found here. dated 11th March 2010, written by WATA - World Association of Arab Translators and Linguists and published on the Brussels Tribunal Website.

"...we would like to inform you that the USA occupying forces in Iraq have locked-up more than (162,000) hundred and sixty-two thousand Iraqi citizens in more than (50) prisons and detention camps including (28) camps run by US occupying forces, in addition to many undisclosed investigation and incarceration centers over Iraq.

The number of detainees registered in International Red Cross records is around (71,000) Seventy-one thousand, the other detainees are not recorded with the IRC because they are arrested at US detaining centers where visits by the Red-Cross representatives are denied by the occupying forces and thousands of war prisoners and old age detainees have been imprisoned and detained for more than six years suffering from unbearable and painful living and health conditions. 

Among the detainees there are (520) women detained by the US forces as hostages in place of their husbands or sons who have escaped detention by the US occupying forces. In prisons run by the US occupying forces there are also more than (900) children of less than fifteen years of age and (470) of them are less than twelve years of age.

 In the government prisons there are (1400) children less than fifteen years dumped into crowded and filthy cells. There are also (12,000) persons detained by mistake or under suspicion who are still detained for many years. 

More tragic is the incidents of dead bodies, dumped in the streets of Iraqi cities, belong to detainees who had been tortured and murdered dreadfully in Iraqi government prisons run by government militias and Iranian intelligence forces. The occupying forces who are legally responsible for the safety of the Iraqi citizens are aware of those incidents but do nothing to stop the tragedy!!!! and the reasons for such an attitude are unknown!!! 

The above-mentioned is the general condition of Iraqi prisoners, but the condition of scientists, leaders, diplomats, ambassadors and ministers who have participated in building Iraq and its progress during the last three decades, is not any better. There is a selection of the best scientists and Iraqi citizens suffering hardship in the dark dungeons of Iraq, waiting their lord’s mercy and the stance of honorable people like your good self to free them from the shackles of dark prisons comparable to the darkness of our country’s occupation.

At what era were prisons considered dwellings for scientists and free citizens but not for outlaws? When was science and serving people a monopoly of one nation and not the other? These honest people committed no crime other than serving their people with honor like other human beings. When we talk about these prisoners they represent a wide section of Iraqi scientific, administrative and military brains that focused on building their Iraq and serving their people..."

Moreover I would like to add these secret prisons in Baghdad and its provinces are run by the sectarian Iraqi forces and the KRG. It is in fact very difficult to know the exact number of political prisoners in Iraq. And by the way, torture and rape are systematic in ALL of those dungeons, including the American ones. 

Furthermore, there are still hundreds of Iraqis missing, rotting away in IRANIAN prisons in various parts of Iran.

As I said you can read the rest of the article and in it you also will find a list of names of members of the previous regimes...only God knows what is happening to them..

Now that's what I call Freedom and Democracy!