Freedom and democracy American style

[Supreme_Warlord]

The other prisoners

Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq? Luke Harding reports

Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.

The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

Late last year, 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 last year, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. "She was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped," Swadi says. "Several 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, 'We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly accurate. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humilation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees - who form a small but unknown proportion of the 40,000 people in US custody since last year's invasion - have also been abused. Nobody appears to know how many. But among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there are, according to Taguba's report, images of a US military policeman "having sex" with an Iraqi woman.

Taguba discovered that guards have also videotaped and photographed naked female detainees. The Bush administration has refused to release other photographs of Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although it has shown them to Congress) - ostensibly to prevent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, but in reality, one suspects, 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. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who investigated the case and found it to be true, said, "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."

In Iraq, the existence of photographs of women detainees being abused has provoked revulsion and outrage, but little surprise. Some of the women involved may since have disappeared, according to human rights activists. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University who is researching the subject for Amnesty International, says she thinks "Noor" is now dead. "We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbours said her family had moved away. I believe she has been killed."

Honour killings are not unusual in Islamic society, where rape is often equated with shame and where the stigma of being raped by an American soldier would, according to one Islamic cleric, be "unbearable". The prospects for rape victims in Iraq are grave; it is hardly surprising that no women have so far come forward to talk about their experiences in US-run jails where abuse was rife until early January.

One of the most depressing aspects of the saga is that, unaccountably, the US military continues to hold five women in solitary confinement at Abu Ghraib, in cells 2.5m (8ft) long by 1.5m (5ft) wide. Last week, the military escorted a small group of journalists around the camp, where hundreds of relatives gather every day in a dusty car park in the hope of news.

The prison is protected by guard towers, an outer fence topped with razor wire, and blast walls. Inside, more than 3,000 Iraqi men are kept in vast open courtyards, in communal brown tents exposed to dust and sun. (Last month, nearly 30 detainees were killed in two separate mortar attacks on the prison; about a dozen survivors are still in the hospital wing, shackled to their beds with leather belts.) As our bus pulled up, the men ran towards the razor wire. They unfurled banners and T-shirts that read: "Why are we here?" "When are you going to do something about this scandal?" "We cannot talk freely."

The women, however, are kept in another part of the prison, cellblock 1A, together with 19 "high-value" male detainees. It is inside this olive-painted block, which leads into a courtyard of shimmering green saysaban trees and pink flowering shrubs, that the notorious photographs of US troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners were taken, many of them on the same day, November 8 2003. A wooden interrogation shed is a short stroll away. As we arrived at the cellblock, the women shouted to us through the bars. An Iraqi journalist tried to talk to them; a female US soldier interrupted and pushed him away. The windows of the women's cells have been boarded up; birds nest in the outside drainpipe. Captain Dave Quantock, now in charge of prisoner detention at Abu Ghraib, confirmed that the women prisoners are in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. They have no entertainment; they do have a Koran.

Since the scandal first emerged there is general agreement that conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved. A new, superior catering company now provides the inmates' food, and all the guards involved in the original allegations of abuse have left.

Nevertheless, there remain extremely troubling questions as to why these women came to be here. Like other Iraqi prisoners, all five are classified as "security detainees" - a term invented by the Bush administration to justify the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the war on terror. US military officials will only say that they are suspected of "anti-coalition activities".

Two of the women are the wives of high-ranking and absconding Ba'ath party members; two are accused of financing the resistance; and one allegedly had a relationship with the former head of Iraq's secret police, the Mukhabarat. The women, in their 40s and 50s, come from Kirkuk and Baghdad; none has seen their families or children since their arrest earlier this year.

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, she's 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 in violation of international law - 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.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, whose devastating report on human rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners was delivered to the government in February but failed to ring alarm bells, says the problem lies with the system. "It is an absence of judicial guarantees," says Nada Doumani, spokesperson for the ICRC. "The system is not fair, precise or properly defined."

During her visit to Abu Ghraib in March, one of the prisoners told Swadi that she had been forced to undress in front of US soldiers. "The Iraqi translator turned his head in embarrassment," she said. The release of detainees, meanwhile, appears to be entirely arbitrary: three weeks ago one woman prisoner who spoke fluent English and who had been telling her guards that she would sue them was suddenly released. "They got fed up with her," another lawyer, Amal Alrawi, says.

Last Friday, about 300 male prisoners were freed from Abu Ghraib, the first detainees to be released since the abuse scandal first broke. A further 475 are due to be released tomorrow, although it is not clear if any of the women will be among them. General Geoffery Miller, who is responsible for overhauling US military jails in Iraq, has promised to release 1,800 prisoners across Iraq "within 45 days". Some 2,000 are likely to remain behind bars, he says. Iraqi lawyers and officials aredemanding that the US military hands the prisons over to Iraqi management on June 30, when the coalition transfers limited powers to a UN-appointed caretaker Iraqi government. Last week, Miller said "negotiations" with Iraqi officials were ongoing.

Relatives who gathered outside Abu Ghraib last Friday said it was common knowledge that women had been abused inside the jail. Hamid Abdul Hussein, 40, who was there hoping to see his brother Jabar freed, said former detainees who had returned to their home town of Mamudiya reported that several women had been raped. "We've know this for months," he said. "We also heard that some women committed suicide."

While the abuse may have stopped, the US military appears to have learned nothing from the experience. Swadi says that when she last tried to visit the women at Abu Ghraib, "The US guards refused to let us in. When we complained, they threatened to arrest us."

[Alyrium Denryle]

Can we get a link to the source?
If this is true, I will be writing a very heated letter to my chief executive.

[Supreme_Warlord]

Can we get a link to the source?
If this is true, I will be writing a very heated letter to my chief executive.

I hope this won't simply be dismissed as leftist propaganda as stories of the male abuse were earlier

[Gil Hamilton]

I hope to god this is false news.

[Rogue 9]

Newsweek had a piece about alleged pictures of abuse of female detainees actually being mockups ripped off of some porn site and given to the Boston Globe. More of the same, perhaps?

[Aaron]

Why the disbelief? After everything thats happened with the male prisoners, I have no problem believing that female detainees are getting similar treatment. Although it would be nice to have a link to a source so we can see if it's credible or not. But remember no one believed that the males prisoners were being abused until pictures cropped up. I'll go on record now as believing these accusations.

[Supreme_Warlord]

...Although it would be nice to have a link to a source so we can see if it's credible or not...

Can we get a link to the source?
If this is true, I will be writing a very heated letter to my chief executive.

I hope this won't simply be dismissed as leftist propaganda as stories of the male abuse were earlier

I gave the link in my reply to AD. The reason it didn't look like a link is because I coloured the text red to make it stand out more.

[Aaron]

Is the Guardian a reputable paper?

[Supreme_Warlord]

Here are some more links with mentions of the abuse of female detainees:

The Herald (on page 2 of article)

Middle East Online

[Howedar]

Why the disbelief? After everything thats happened with the male prisoners, I have no problem believing that female detainees are getting similar treatment. Although it would be nice to have a link to a source so we can see if it's credible or not. But remember no one believed that the males prisoners were being abused until pictures cropped up. I'll go on record now as believing these accusations.

Frog, therefore lemon.

Regardless of what has happened to male prisoners, I do not trust the Guardian as a lone source. I am not saying this shit didn't happen, but the Guardian has never and will never carry enough clout to convince me that the sky is blue.

[Plekhanov]

Is the Guardian a reputable paper?

The Guardian is one of the better UK broadsheets, it is to the left and consistently opposed the Iraqi war but I don’t think that necessarily invalidates everything it says. If you want to see for yourself check out www.guardian.co.uk it’s free, has an excellent archive and I find the special reports useful.

They were right about Jonathan Aitken for example and faced down much of the British gov in proving so.

Regardless of what has happened to male prisoners, I do not trust the Guardian as a lone source. I am not saying this shit didn't happen, but the Guardian has never and will never carry enough clout to convince me that the sky is blue.

Why such a dislike of the Guardian? In your opinion which UK news sources and papers are more credible?

[Ubiquitous]

The Guardian is the most bias left wing paper we have. People have a right to question it.

I want the report substanciated by a more reputable, moderate paper. Like Howedar, I'm not saying that it didn't happen, I'm just saying thatI have same level of trust for the Daily Mail as I have for the Guardian - which isn't very high at all.

[Ubiquitous]

Oooh, no pun intended in the first sentence above, either.

[Col. Crackpot]

Why such a dislike of the Guardian? In your opinion which UK news sources and papers are more credible?

The BBC, The Times of London, The Daily Mail.

The Guardian is the lefty UK equivilant of the US right wing Washington Times.

[MKSheppard]

The Guardian is the lefty UK equivilant of the US right wing Washington Times.

Now now, don't dis the Washington Times. They routinely get some of
the best scoops from inside the Pentagon, thanks to Bill Gertz

[Col. Crackpot]

The Guardian is the lefty UK equivilant of the US right wing Washington Times.

Now now, don't dis the Washington Times. They routinely get some of
the best scoops from inside the Pentagon, thanks to Bill Gertz

true, but i always check somewhere else, the times has had some loony shit in the past, not as loony as the International Herald Tribune though.

[Plekhanov]

Why such a dislike of the Guardian? In your opinion which UK news sources and papers are more credible?

The BBC,

I agree

The Times of London,

Just another Murdock mouthpiece, not so bad on domestic politics when not under orders, but on Europe and “the War on Terror” I have great difficulty believing a word from Murdocks empire.

The Daily Mail.

you’ve got to be kidding me. The Mail is too right wing for half of the Tories I know. This is the paper that has been making up delusional stories about asylum seekers for years, which up to the night of EU enlargement was predicting we would be “flooded” with benefit claimants from the new members.

The Guardian is the lefty UK equivilant of the US right wing Washington Times.

Couldn’t really comment on the Washington Times but the Guardian is by no means far left, its socially liberal and economically probably left of centre, of the current labour party. Now I know that’s scarily left wing in the US but in the EU its not unusual.

[Joe]

The Washington Times isn't that right wing, is it? I thought the Post was more right wing.

[MKSheppard]

The Washington Times isn't that right wing, is it? I thought the Post was more right wing.

*chokes to death on own vomit*

The POST right wing? The same paper that slavishly pushes
gun control, abortion rights, and other left wing pet projects?

[Joe]

I've just never gotten a right wing vibe from the Times is all, so I assumed someone had mistaken it for the Post.

[Edi]

I hope to god this is false news.

False hope, that. This story was in the Finnish news already a week ago, though not in this much detail. But given the testimony of some of the male prisoners who saw woman prisoners having sex with the US soldiers and all the other shit that has gone down in Abu Ghraib and the de facto total lack of accountability in the US military where abuses and murder of non-Americans is concerned, I tend to accept this story as true at face value. And given how the Taguba report specifically verified that one case, I don't see that there is any other logical conclusion to arrive at.

Edi

[LadyTevar]

This makes me sick.... but I'm not surprised to hear about it.

[2000AD]

Why such a dislike of the Guardian? In your opinion which UK news sources and papers are more credible?

The BBC, The Times of London, The Daily Mail.

The Guardian is the lefty UK equivilant of the US right wing Washington Times.

Out of interest what's the Daily Express?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The Daily Mail.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

GOLD!

[Vendetta]

Out of interest what's the Daily Express?

Wankrag. To go with your copy of Readers Wives, by the same publisher.