Human rights group Amnesty International released a report yesterday claiming detainees in Iraq are still being tortured by their captors despite negative attention generated by the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
The report lists allegations from former detainees who claim they were beaten with plastic cables, given electric shocks and made to stand in a flooded room as an electrical current was passed through the water.
Amnesty said researchers conducted interviews in Jordan and Iraq with former detainees, relatives of current detainees and lawyers involved in detainees' cases in Iraq.
PHOTO: AFP
The interviews were conducted starting last year and they ran into this year, London-based Amnesty said.
A US military detention mission spokesman responded to the report by saying that all detainees are treated according to international conventions and Iraqi law.
"Some of the detainees have been held for over two years without any effective remedy or recourse," Amnesty said in the report. "Others have been released without explanation or apology or reparation after months in detention, victims of a system that is arbitrary and a recipe for abuse."
But the US military said each detainee is given a form explaining the reasons for their imprisonment and their files are reviewed every 90 to 120 days, US detention command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill said in an email.
The Amnesty report called for an overhaul of the way detainees are treated by British, US and Iraqi authorities. In particular, Amnesty International wants those who detain people in Iraq to ensure inmates are given due process -- a lawyer and an appearance before an impartial court -- and to fully investigate any abuse allegations.
"Since Abu Ghraib, the multinational force -- and the United States in particular -- promised they would put safeguards in place," Amnesty spokeswoman Nicole Choueiry said. "But the [lack of] legal safeguards are still an obstacle to detainees getting and enjoying their human rights."
The report, quoting a US military Web site, said that figures compiled in November showed the number of detainees in coalition military prisons in Iraq was 14,000. Last year, the US military said it planned to spend about US$50 million to expand prison capacity to hold up to 16,000 people.
Notorious photographs from 2003 showing Iraqi inmates being abused led to the convictions of several US soldiers and major inquiries by US authorities into how prisoners are treated.
The Amnesty report urges the British and US governments to publicly declare that torture and degrading treatment of prisoners will not be tolerated, to end indefinite internment of people in Iraq and to conduct impartial, transparent investigations of those accused of mistreating detainees.
Britain's Defense Ministry said allegations of wrongdoing have always been taken seriously, and that a police investigation is initiated when there are any grounds that a criminal act might have occurred. It also said that international observers are invited into their detention centers -- a policy Amnesty said should be standard for all nations holding prisoners.
"The International Committee for the Red Cross are informed when we intern an individual, usually immediately, but always within 24 hours. They are fully aware of who we hold at our detention facility. The individual's family is also informed," a spokeswoman for the ministry said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
Britain has 42 people in custody in one facility, she said, and "we have no interest in interning individuals in Iraq other than to protect Iraqi security personnel and civilians, and British servicemen and women, from attack."
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