A young Iraqi prisoner in yellow overalls stands in a cage at the Abu Ghraib jail with other inmates waiting to meet with their families.
"So what has happened to the amnesty?" he asks.
In the new and improved Abu Ghraib, more than a thousand detainees are held in the collection of outdoor blocks that make up Camp Redemption in the prison complex.
Work is under way on nearby Camp Liberty, which is supposed to take inmates who may qualify for release from this US-run prison west of Baghdad.
They have to don the yellow overalls when they leave the camp to perform chores or when taken to the visiting area.
Although those at Abu Ghraib are being held without trial, a big board written in Arabic reminds prisoners of their basic rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Life has certainly improved for the estimated 2,400 inmates here since photographs and video footage surfaced in April depicting the horrors of abuse by US troops late last year. A crew of cooks with a Saudi catering company prepares three meals a day to ensure that prisoners get a daily 2,500-calorie intake.
Yet the prisoners' fate has never been more tenuous amid conflicting signals over a much-talked-about amnesty for some suspects.
Both Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Ghazi al-Yawar said earlier this month that the amnesty would cover those who may have resisted the US occupation but are now ready to put down their arms after the handover of power on June 28 to the caretaker government.
Almost all of the so-called security detainees held at Abu Ghraib and another 2,640 held at Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Umm Qasr are accused of arms possession or involvement in attacks against the US-led coalition.
Yawar said in mid-July that the reprieve would cover everyone but rapists, murderers and kidnappers, in a bid to divide and weaken the 15-month insurgency that shows no sign of abating.
The announcement of the amnesty has already been delayed several times as Washington signaled that it disagrees with the Iraqi government regarding the prisoners' fate.
US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte said a week ago that the amnesty should be viewed in a political context, and that those who harmed the US-led military should never be pardoned.
At Redemption, anger and frustration reign as inmates battle the stifling summer heat un-der cloth tents and wonder whether the elusive amnesty will include them.
Six Iraqi representatives will sit on a board alongside three US officers to decide to release detainees or refer cases to Iraq's central criminal court, which was set up by the US-led occupation early this year.
Amnesty or not, most prisoners' fates seem to be sealed, as the US opposes their release.
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS