IRAQ: Human Rights Become an Alien Force

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peyman Pejman

AMMAN, Jul 28 2003 (IPS) - Three months after the end of major hostilities in Iraq, human rights remain a controversial issue in a country alien to the concept for at least the past three decades.

The exact number of people being detained by the coalition forces is not known, but official estimates place it around 2,000 to 3,000. Some are being detained in southern Iraq, but most are holed up at a temporary facility set up at Baghdad International Airport.

Tackling the human rights issue in Iraq has many facets. This is a country in which hundreds of thousands of people vanished under the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein.

One of the main agents of aggression against the human rights of the Iraqi people was none other than Saddam’s son, Uday, who coalition forces say they killed during a raid on a posh villa in the northern city of Mosul.

Given the country’s deeply-rooted sense of nationalism, the United Nations office in Iraq organized a three-day seminar on human rights earlier this month. Experts were brought in from overseas.

“Our objective is not to tell them what human rights is and what measures are appropriate for Iraq,” Carol Rishmawi, a United Nations (UN) legal affairs advisor in Baghdad told IPS then. “Our objective is to introduce to them what models and standards are available worldwide and let them choose what is best for them.”

But regardless of what benchmarks the future Iraqi government chooses for itself, the coalition forces are mandated by the Geneva Convention to uphold fundamental standards.

The coalition forces – mainly U.S. officials – have admitted that they were not fully prepared for all the human rights issues that emerged after they took control of the country.

Prisoners, who at the beginning of the occupation numbered more than they do now, were kept, by the admission of U.S. forces, in substandard tents and detention facilities. And many were kept without charge for extended periods.

After increasing criticism from groups such Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and his top deputies speeded up the process of improving the prisoners’ living conditions. New judicial proceedings were created to decide who should be released and who held for longer periods.

Coalition Forces have reopened three Baghdad courts and appointed judges to rule speedily on cases referred to them. The judges have been vetted for possible association with the former regime.

A part of the problem coalition forces face is the sheer number of the people they arrest. The forces continue to arrest, and release, tens of thousands of criminals that Saddam Hussein freed from various Iraqi jails before he was deposed.

Coalition forces have repaired and reopened some of the notorious prisons of the Saddam era, including Abu Ghoreib just outside Baghdad. Some detainess are now being sent there.

But human rights groups criticize the coalition forces for not trying harder.

In a report published last week, Amnesty International took issue with the coalition forces over lengthy and unexplained detentions in which those arrested are at times moved from one detention camp to another without families being notified, or the suspects given access to a lawyer.

Under new rules established by the coalition forces, every detainee is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and has the right to an attorney, even if he or she cannot afford one.

Coalition officials say they are trying to computerize the list of detainees at each site to keep their families better informed.

“The Iraqi people have suffered long enough,” says Mahmoud Ben Romdhane, Amnesty’s representative in Baghdad. “It is shameful to still hear of people who are being detained in inhumane conditions, without their families knowing where they are and with no access to a lawyer, often for weeks on end.”

He says some detainees complained to Amnesty that they had no access to adequate drinking or washing water, and that they had been exposed to excessive heat in detention camps. Other prisoners said they were exposed to loud music or incessant light that would deprive them of sleep.

Amnesty said in its report that it has investigated several cases of illegal detention. It said that the coalition forces have not complied in some cases with release orders issued by Iraqi magistrates.

The Amnesty report also complained about excessive use of force by coalition forces in some cases.

Bremer and his military colleagues have said they would investigate all such cases if offered details. They also have promised to move prisoners from tents to indoor detention sites.

“We are willing to cooperate,” Bernard Kerek, a former New York City Police Commissioner hired as liaison officer with the Iraqi interior ministry said at a recent press conference. “Is everything perfect? No. We are learning lessons as we go along.”