HRW REVEALS HORRIFIC ABUSE IN IRAQ PRISON

HRW REVEALS HORRIFIC ABUSE IN IRAQ PRISON

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August 11, 2022

Iraqi men held for months at a secret prison outside Baghdad were sexually abused, electrocuted, beaten up and forced to sign confession statements which they were forbidden to read, New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) disclosed, on April 28, in a harrowing report reminiscent of the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib.

Some of the detainees, mostly Sunnis from the northern city of Mosul, were beaten by Iraqi guards so badly they lost teeth and urinated blood for days afterward, the report says. The watchdog interviewed 42 men who were recently transferred to another detention facility in Baghdad, after details of misconduct were passed to the government.

HRW described the prisoners’ accounts of abuse as credible and consistent. It demanded an independent and impartial investigation, and also called for prosecutions at the highest level. “The government needs to prosecute all those responsible for this systematic brutality,” the watchdog’s deputy Middle East director Joe Stork said.