Muhammad al-Tamimi said he wants the British soldier who kicked him in the ribs and hit him over the head with the butt of his gun to endure what he endured -- a long detention.
Tamimi was one of about two dozen detainees who have come forward recently with complaints of mistreatment by US and British forces in southern Iraq. Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group which has been conducting interviews with the detainees, said Thursday that some of the soldiers' actions, if substantiated, could be described as torture.
Iraqis who were taken prisoner have accused US and British soldiers of offenses varying from beatings to -- in one case recounted by a Saudi man -- electric shock. While in some cases the detainees accused soldiers of hitting them just once, in one instance, a former prisoner said he was beaten throughout the night.
Researchers at Amnesty International said Thursday they had not yet corroborated the allegations or presented them to US and British forces. But they said they had received enough similar accounts from Iraqi civilians and soldiers that they were taking them seriously.
"The patterns that have emerged constitute ill treatment," said Kathleen Cavanaugh, an Amnesty International researcher in Basra who conducted some of the interviews. "That mistreatment may constitute, in some cases, torture."
The British Ministry of Defense released a statement denying the accusations.
"Those who were detained by British forces were treated in line with the Geneva Conventions, and we had regular visits by the International Committee for the Red Cross," the statement read. "If there are allegations, then we will have to look at them and see if we can investigate."
A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, also disputed the Amnesty International report. "We treat all enemy prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and with dignity and respect," Whitman said.
Tamimi, 26, said he was one of those who welcomed the toppling of Saddam Hussein and greeted the advancing British soldiers not with guns but with waves of joy. But on April 17, after the British had contained a fierce counterattack by Saddam loyalists in Basra, Tamimi said, he was picked up on the street one evening and detained.
He said he was treated roughly from the start and was denied water despite repeated requests. One British soldier struck him in the forehead, Tamimi said as he showed off a scar. Shortly after that, he said, while he had a hood over his head, he was kicked hard in the ribs. In addition, he said soldiers took the money he was carrying, about US$200 in Iraqi dinars, and never returned it.
"In every country, whatever nationality, British, American or Iraqi, there are people who are nice and people who are not so nice," said Tamimi, who said he worked as a street vendor. "The soldier who mistreated me needs to be taken to court."
In Tamimi's case, the mistreatment stopped when he came into the custody of US soldiers, he said. He was taken to the detention compound for prisoners of war in Umm Qasr, where he said he was treated with dignity, although he said it took until Wednesday for a board of inquiry to determine that he ought to be released.
As word of Amnesty International's investigation has spread in Basra and other southern towns, former detainees have begun arriving unannounced at the Al-Marbad Hotel, where staff members for the organization have been staying.
"A soldier hit me for no reason," said Muhammad al-Qatrany, 22, who was interviewed on Thursday by an Amnesty researcher on the front porch of the hotel. "I didn't have a weapon. I was a civilian. Why did he hit me?"
Amnesty also criticized the US military for not allowing it access to the Umm Qasr detention facility, which once housed as many as 6,000 detainees but now holds only about 500. Inmates are given US$5 and some food and other supplies upon release.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese