In a conservative Islamic tribal society where women are closely guarded, nine female prisoners are being used as bargaining chips in the hostage drama of US journalist Jill Carroll.
Kidnappers had threatened to kill the 28-year-old freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor unless all female inmates in Iraq were released by Friday night. The deadline passed without word of Carroll's fate or the prisoners' release.
The US military confirmed this week that it was holding eight women. However, Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim Ali said a ninth woman was arrested on Jan. 6, one day before Carroll was abducted.
Little is known about these women, except that they are between 20 and 30 years old and face terrorism-related charges. Human rights activists believe many are detained to pressure wanted male relatives to turn themselves in.
It's not the first time the fate of a Western hostage has been linked to demands for the release of Iraqi female prisoners held in connection with the insurgency. Some hostages were eventually released, even though women remained in custody.
It is unclear how many women have been jailed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003 and how many were really involved in the insurgency.
But the practice of detaining women in security raids has become an inflammatory subject in this conservative society, where men sometimes kill female relatives who have been raped because of "shame" brought to the family.
The US military has tried to ease cultural sensitivities by ordering male troops not to touch Iraqi women and using female soldiers to frisk them at checkpoints.
According to Ali, all nine female prisoners are being held in a single 7m-by-4m cell at a US detention facility near Baghdad airport. Each has her own bed.
None was aware of the kidnappers' demand for their release because detainees are not allowed to watch television news, he added. Ali also said the female detainees told him they had not been subjected to physical or psychological abuse and were guarded by women.
Rumors that Iraqi female prisoners have been abused are rife in this country since photos of sexual humiliation of male inmates by US soldiers at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison first appeared nearly two years ago.
According to members of the US Congress who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, some of the photos and videos included images of women ordered to expose their breasts.
Ali said he expected US forces to free six of the women in a few days after a government commission reviewing detainee cases recommended they be released due to lack of evidence. US authorities would not comment on his claim.
The official said the six due for release were detained over the past six months by US or Iraqi forces in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Tal Afar and investigations into their cases had been completed. The others were arrested in the last two months and investigations usually take at least three months, he added.
All were detained under the broad charge of "aiding terrorists or planting explosives," he added.
"In my opinion, all of them are innocent," Ali said.
Ali insisted that the planned release of the six women had nothing to do with kidnappers' demands, saying detainees are "arrested and released every day."
"This is not the first time we are requesting the release of prisoners," he said. "This whole brouhaha is because it's being tied to the release of the American journalist. We don't negotiate with terrorists."
Hind al-Salehi, an activist who promotes the rights of female detainees, said many women are arrested to pressure male relatives wanted by the Americans or Iraqis to surrender. Some do, al-Salehi said, although others "would rather sacrifice their wives or daughters and mothers for the sake of that cause."
"They break into a house looking for a suspect. He's out. So they take his wife or sister or mother," she said.
The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al Hayat quoted an unidentified woman who was released from jail two weeks ago as saying she was detained because her husband had been accused of belonging to an insurgent group. Because security forces couldn't find him, the wife was taken, the newspaper said.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
CONFLICT: The move is the latest escalation of the White House’s pitched battle with Harvard University as more than US$2 billion is suspended US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law on federal research grants. In a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber on Friday, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the university is failing its obligations to US taxpayers, paving the way for a process that could result in the government seizing its patents under the Bayh-Dole Act. Harvard has until Sept. 5 to prove it is complying with the requirements, including whether it showed a
RSS