Iraqis accuse UK, U.S. troops of torture |
| Posted by: Search4Truth | | Iraqis accuse UK, U.S. troops of torture - Amnesty
By Sinead O'Hanlon
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16517646.htm
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Iraqi civilians and soldiers have accused British and U.S. troops of torturing them for information during the war in Iraq, human rights lobby group Amnesty International said on Friday.
Amnesty researcher Said Boumedouha said the group had so far interviewed about 20 people who said they were tortured -- mostly by beatings but at least one by electric shock -- after being detained as prisoners of war. Some civilians were held as suspected Iraqi militia fighters.
Boumedouha said Amnesty was still collecting witness statements and had not corroborated the statements, nor raised the matter with British or U.S. authorities on any level.
"They are a mixture of civilians and soldiers... The torture some people have mentioned is mostly beatings," Boumedouha said at a news briefing in London about the Amnesty mission in Iraq.
"We interviewed one person who was beaten up for a whole night, who was bleeding but they wouldn't even give him water."
No immediate comment was available from either Britain's Ministry of Defence nor U.S. authorities.
Boumedouha said the allegations were being taken seriously and that his initial gut reaction was that they were true.
"I think they are telling the truth. But to what extent (it happened) and the details of it all...that we are still trying to establish."
"We still have many interviews to go. I hope that we will be able to make a statement in the next two weeks or so."
The Iraqis interviewed said they were tortured at Basra and Nassiriya before being taken to a base at Umm Qasr where they were held as prisoners of war. All were later released.
Boumedouha did not say how they came to talk to the Iraqis.
Amnesty also called on U.S. and British troops to do more to improve security for the Iraqi people and protect the sites of several mass graves unearthed in the country.
Boumedouha said Iraqis had told them that protection from criminal gangs was a bigger problem than getting food and water.
"The looting in Basra for example is still unbelievable and now there are other problems, including car-jacking and revenge killings against former police and Baath party members." | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: Edward Teach | | Hmmm Interesting, I wonder what the Red Cross has to say about that since they visited all of the EPW's the US and UK had in custody. | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: rowdyrjp | | No more arguments I can't think of any way of getting thru to right wing fascists so.... how about an old Barry McGuire protest song?
The eastern world, it is explodin’.
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy
It’s bound to scare you boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
You can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drum, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction. | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: mtliveingtree | | I wwonder if those iraqii soldiers were asked about the thousands of people saddam tortured,murdered,raped and beat and buried in mass graves if they were tortured. I wonder how many of them soldiers actually partaked in or witnessed all of those deaths and tortured souls were haveing done to them before they were dropped to there knees and shot in the head, i wonder what there last thoughts were. So when you feel sorry for the iraqii soldiers remember all the thousands laying in mass graves now what they thought. You people are so blind and single minded you cant even see the truth when it is in front of you. Remember next time you see a soldier or vet just a THANKYOU WILL DO for your freedom and your freedom and rights as a human being not haveing to worry about being grabbed and raped,beaten,murdered or body parts cut off for your beleifs and your opions. Just a thankyou will do | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: nowar | | those Shia which are in the mass graves - most of those in the mass graves - due to their uprising against Saddam after GW I wil never say "THANK YOU" as well as their familly .........
you should ask them to say: "JUST A THANK YOU WILL DO" and I would like to be present to see what will happen .....
And if they start - as it seems - to fight the troops to get " their" freedom of choice - which seems that they will not be entitled to do - will you still say : JUST A THANK YOU WILL DO to the troops ?
troops - from both side - never choose, they do what they have been told, good or bad but never choose ..... | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: mtliveingtree | | i see noware your still blind and got your sun glasses on............lol | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: Americaaah | |
| quote: |
Originally posted by Search4Truth
Iraqis accuse UK, U.S. troops of torture - Amnesty
By Sinead O'Hanlon
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16517646.htm
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Iraqi civilians and soldiers have accused British and U.S. troops of torturing them for information during the war in Iraq, human rights lobby group Amnesty International said on Friday.... |
 You can't be serious....
____
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.”
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| Posted by: nowar | |
| quote: |
Originally posted by mtliveingtree
i see noware your still blind and got your sun glasses on............lol |
same feeling about you .... lol
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| Posted by: Search4Truth | |
| quote: |
Originally posted by Ron Ackerman
Hmmm Interesting, I wonder what the Red Cross has to say about that since they visited all of the EPW's the US and UK had in custody. |
Nope your wrong Ron Ackerman!!
Red Cross denied access to PoWs
http://www.observer.co.uk/internati...,963108,00.html
The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to Baghdad airport, The Observer has learnt.
There have also been reports of a mutiny last week by prisoners at an airport compound, in protest against conditions. The uprising was 'dealt with' by the Americans, according to a US military source.
The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down.
There is circumstantial evidence that prisoners are being gagged and hooded, in the manner of the Afghans and other captives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - treatment in itself questionable under international law.
Unlike the Afghans in Cuba, there is no doubt about the status of these captives, whether PoWs or civilians arrested for looting or other crimes under military occupation: all have the right, under the laws of war, to be visited and documented by the International Red Cross. 'There is no argument about the situation with regard to the Iraqi armed forces and even the Fedayeen Saddam,' said the ICRC's spokeswoman in Baghdad, Nada Doumani.
'They are prisoners of war because they have been captured during a clear conflict between two states. If they served in the armed forces or in a militia with distinctive clothing which came under the chain of command of one of the warring states, they are protected under article 143 of the Geneva Convention.'
The ICRC has gained access to prisoners held in camps at Umm Qasr in the south. But with regard to the larger numbers reportedly held in Baghdad, said Doumani, 'we are still waiting for the green light, more than a month after the end of the conflict. This is in breach of the third Geneva Convention.' She said the laws of war should give the ICRC access 'as quickly as possible'.
The airport camps are also said to contain many hundreds of civilians detained for looting, who, Doumani said, 'do not fit into the category of prisoners of war, according to the Americans'.
Civilians held, she said, have similar rights because they have been detained by an occupying power, which the ICRC insists the Americans to be, even if they do not use those words of themselves.
'Civilian prisoners under a military occupation have the right to be visited and documented,' she said, 'and for their next-of-kin to be informed. Hundreds of families are looking around Baghdad for members of their families who have gone missing and are believed to have been arrested. They are being taken somewhere, but no one knows where.'
A US military source said a mutiny occurred at the beginning of last week at one compound at the airport zone - for the most part a sealed-off area and the site of some of the heaviest civilian casualties as the Americans surged into the Iraqi capital.
The rebellion was 'dealt with' by the US authorities, said the source, with no confirmation or denial of deaths.
Witnesses to the camps are few, since no Iraqi prisoners taken to them have been released. But a cameraman for the France 3 television channel, arrested at the Palestine Hotel, did manage a glimpse. Leo Nicolian has documentation signed by a Lieutenant Brad Fisher saying he was wrongly arrested (and beaten, with a black eye to prove it) for the alleged theft of a bag from an American reporter.
He was held at the tennis court compound along with, he said, about 50 other prisoners, and told he was detained 'for investiga tion'. On his way out, Nicolian said he passed a bigger encampment in which he saw 'hundreds of men' hooded, with their arms tied behind their backs.
A worker for a non-governmental aid organisation, who asked not to be named, told The Observer that he saw men in a similar state aboard a truck, apparently in transit from one place to another. The aid worker said he managed to video the scene.
Doumani said there was no specific wording in the Geneva Convention on the American practice of hooding and gagging, but that the law did specify that prisoners be treated humanely. 'We have to assess what is humane,' she said.
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| Posted by: Dreamzwalker | |
| quote: |
Originally posted by Search4Truth
Witnesses to the camps are few, since no Iraqi prisoners taken to them have been released. But a cameraman for the France 3 television channel, arrested at the Palestine Hotel, did manage a glimpse. Leo Nicolian has documentation signed by a Lieutenant Brad Fisher saying he was wrongly arrested (and beaten, with a black eye to prove it) for the alleged theft of a bag from an American reporter.
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How do we know he didn't try to hit them to make them let go?
How do you know that he didn't have a weapon?
In order to Search4Truth correctly, one must look at it from a 3d perspective - not a bias 2d onesided perspective - as we know not what happened.
We were not there -
Our police will hit someone if they try to get away in attempt to knock them down. This is nothing new as it happens everyday.
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| Posted by: Edward Teach | | I have been searching for ANY other story on this and have yet to find anything that backs this up. You would think that the Red Cross would mention something on their website? And you would think that there would be a response from an American Official somewhere? I'll keep looking though. | | Reply To this Message
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| Posted by: Dreamzwalker | | The Red Cross would mention something like that on their website. | | Reply To this Message
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Post-9/11 Era Forum: Iraqis accuse UK, U.S. troops of torture
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