Iraqi Prisons: US-Sponsored Torture Facilities
For long decades, Iraqi prisons have witnessed an alarming increase in human rights violations and poor prison conditions, with detainees subjected to horrific forms of torture as well as psychological and physical intimidation.
Omar Farhan of the Iraqi Centre for the Documentation of War Crimes affirmed that the use of torture has been increased in Iraqi jails since the US 2003 invasion, saying that impunity gave a green light for more violations.
Although Iraq has joined the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2008, torture and impunity has been notably increased in Iraqi jails.
Various forms of torture were documented in Iraqi custody including slapping, insults, humiliation, threats, electric shocks, ill-treatment, denial of food and medical treatment, beatings, hanging, and sexual violence (ex: electric shock to genitals and forcible insertion of a glass bottle or a stick into the prisoner’s anal passage).
The Iraqi counter-terrorism measures were accompanied by serious human rights violations, Farhan added, pointing out that security services and militias arbitrarily arrested many civilians, who were subjected to different forms of torture. Some of them were tortured to death, he said.
Iraqi authorities are detaining more than 1,000 Iraqi women illegally in 13 detention centres and subjecting them to torture, ill-treatment, and sexual abuse.
Therefore, we consider these reported torture cases as crimes against humanity that involve the local authorities.
We further call for facilitating the implementation of compensation law for victims, especially that it is an essential pillar in the international criminal justice.
