Aziz Jabr Shayal* outlines the systematic humiliation of Iraqis under occupation Human rights violations in Iraq are a prime example of the magnitude of the injustice dual standards have inflicted on the Iraqi people. The history of modern Iraq, from its establishment following World War II to the present day, is the story of a human catastrophe in which structural and functional imbalances have invariably bred deviant human rights behaviour among the rulers, and not infrequently among the ruled. This article will attempt to shed some light on the forms of human rights abuses under the US-British occupation of Iraq. The practices of the occupation forces have cast into relief the profundity of Iraq's humanitarian tragedy. The lives of Iraqis are daily threatened by the most powerful war machine in the world, one which makes no distinction between military and civilian targets. They are deprived of the right to choose their own political, economic and social system. and they have no say in their own future because their sovereignty has been pawned to the will of the occupying power. These abuses began with the first American missile bombardment of the country. They intensified in the wake of the occupation, a counterpoint to Bush's strident boasts that he had liberated the Iraqi people from a regime that flaunted internationally held values and customs, his jubilation that he had vanquished a component of the "axis of evil" and his promise to the Iraqi people that he would bring the freedom, prosperity and rights they had lacked for so long. A year later Bush's promises have come true in the most perverse way. Today we have brutality under freedom instead of oppression under dictatorship. We enjoy the democracy of assassination and indiscriminate reprisal. Our cities have been converted into killing fields in which Iraqi civilians are picked off by American guns. Today the sound of terrorist bombs fills the acoustical void in which music used to be in the not so distant past. Thanks to the occupation Iraq has become the world's leading arena in the fight against terrorism. And as the terrorists of the occupation, and the terrorists they have attracted from abroad, settle their scores it is our people who are dying, the remnants of our infrastructure that is being destroyed, our petroleum wealth that is being burned. Add to the foregoing assaults by the occupation's artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships in their search for Al-Zarqawi and his likes, behind which pretext they hide their criminal bombardment of residential areas 14 months after the beginning of the occupation, and a fuller picture emerges of the savage freedom they want to implant in Iraq. The list of human rights abuses against Iraqis grows longer daily. The following categories constitute only a beginning of any survey of the violations, most of which have gone unnoticed. 1. Violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (12 August 1949). Contrary to articles 13 to 16 of this convention, occupation authorities have unlawfully caused the death and seriously endangered the health of POWs in their custody (Article 13), failed to respect their persons and their honour and did not treat female POWs with the regard due to their sex (Article 14). Also in breach of this convention, Iraqi prisoners of war had been detained in unsafe premises. Following the cessation of hostilities military fire emanating from an unidentified source outside one of the detention centres -- some eyewitnesses have claimed it was American fire -- resulted in the death of General Abdul-Jabbar, former governor of Misan, along with 20 other senior Iraqi officers in a single day. The media coverage of Abu Ghraib testifies to the maltreatment and degradation of prisoners, in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention, although there is reason to suspect that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Among the lesser known abuses to which prisoners have been subjected is the force-feeding of pork, in violation of Articles 34--37 which enjoin detaining powers to respect religious beliefs and practices. Nor have prisoners been apprised of the duration and the reasons for their incarceration. Perhaps the strangest story I heard in this regard was told to me by a farmer who said that he was arrested for having killed a snake in his field. The American soldiers who apprehended him told him that he had violated the animal's right to life. Prisoners are also frequently transferred from one prison to another, in a deliberate attempt to impede access to them by family members. Prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, for example, are routinely relocated to Boka Prison in Umm Qasr in the far south. In addition, prisoners are fed only twice a day, and these meals are apparently so meagre that the prisoners are driven to root around in the garbage for the remnants of their guards' meals. Another grave instance of flagrant degradation occurs upon the release of detainees. Those who have had such good fortune are suddenly faced with a nightmare when the prison guards strip them of their uniforms, leaving them naked and forcing them to beg for clothing from others. If Abu Ghraib has had its share of media attention, the same cannot be said of other prisons in which conditions, if anything, are worse. In the prison at Baghdad airport interns are routinely deprived of the right to bathe for more than two weeks running. In Qasr Al-Sajud I was suspended from the bars of my cell for having prayed out loud. My captors interpreted this as an attempt to convey a message to my children, who had also been taken captive in an attempt to lure in a relative suspected of working for the resistance. The relative was, incidentally, eventually arrested in spite of the fact that the information about him was entirely unsubstantiated. But then this is something that Iraqis have grown used to. The WMD fiction aside, the feeble fabrications concocted by the occupation authorities for rounding up people surpass those used by the most outrageous of the world's dictatorships. There are numerous instances in which prisoners have been detained for more than three months without the authorities informing family members of their whereabouts, or without allowing access to the detainee, in violation of Articles 70 to 77 of the Geneva Convention. In addition, in those instances where visits have been allowed, the prisoners were separated from their visitors by barriers and glass partitions which muffled speech. Communication was further impeded by the din of everyone shouting at the top of their voices. That it takes several days of red tape before permission is granted for an hour-long meeting compounds the psychological damage to both the prisoner and his relatives. 2. Violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted on 20 November 1989). That children are placed in direct danger during random bombardments in urban combat zones such as Falluja, Najaf, Karbala, Al-Sadr, Al-Nasseriyya and Al- Kot is, in addition to being in breach of the Geneva Conventions, a clear violation of the inherent right of the child to life, as stipulated in Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In addition, because of ongoing acts of war since the invasion until the present, Iraqi children have been deprived access to the information and material necessary for the promotion of their social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health, in violation of Article 17 of this convention. Many children are now deprived of playgrounds, parks and other such facilities, many of which have either been destroyed or taken over as military bases. Moreover, and of long-term significance, is the impediment to their education, not to mention the psychological damage inflicted by the ongoing and frightening presence of warplanes, gunfire and missile bombardment. 3. Violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted on 12 August 1949). Contrary to the provisions of this convention regarding the need to facilitate medical and rescue workers in the performance of their duties, occupation forces have fired on ambulances and obstructed the transport of the wounded to hospitals. Contrary to the provisions of this convention for respecting medical personnel, they have intimidated and endangered the lives of doctors, as occurred in Al-Noaman, Al-Kindi and Al-Sayyid Mohamed Baqer Al- Hakim Hospitals in Baghdad. In addition, they have taken over hospitals, rendering them no longer accessible to the public, examples of which are the Educational Hospital in Najaf and Al-Falluja General Hospital. Moreover, in the course of seizing and occupying the Educational Hospital in Najaf, the Salvadorian unit killed a number of the patients in their beds. It should also be added that many civilians caught in the crossfire between occupation and resistance forces have been taken into custody, where they remain for months without proper medical attention while their pleas of innocence remain unheard. In what might be a deliberate attempt to spread contagious diseases, occupation forces have prevented, at gunpoint, the removal and burial of corpses. Along the Baghdad highway and in Al-Sadr, Falluja and Najaf, soldiers would take up positions on rooftops and threaten anyone attempting to remove and bury corpses, leaving the odour of decay to hover over the area. Indeed, the human rights officer of our institute and other members of her family have contracted typhoid as a result of the pollution caused by decaying bodies. 4. A number of university professors and human rights activists have been assassinated. Abdul-Latif Al-Yah, director of the Baghdad Centre for Human Rights and the founder of the Arab World Studies Centre; Fallah Al-Dalimi, dean of the Faculty of Science; Salah Mohamed Al-Rawi, president of the University of Baghdad; Shaker Al-Khafafi, general director of the Ministry of Trade; and Mohamed Al-Qaisi of the Centre for Arab World Studies at Al-Mustansariyya University only begin the list. In addition, there are periodic arrests and raids on the homes of human rights activists, of which I have been a victim, my home having been raided and dynamited by US soldiers. A month later I was arrested, along with two of my children, and subjected to various forms of torture and degradation for 12 days. It goes without saying that the foregoing represents the violation of a whole gamut of international laws and human rights instruments, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 5. Violations of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984). Although the outrages in Abu Ghraib are well-known, these and other forms of torture and degradation are also systematically practiced in Boka Prison in the south, Baaqouba in central Iraq and in occupation forces' detention centres. The process routinely begins upon arrest, when the person is thrown to the ground and kicked, frequently in front of his family members, after which his hands are bound behind his back and a hood is thrown over his head -- all to the accompaniment of verbal abuse. The beating and abuse continue during transport to prison, after which the diverse forms of maltreatment and degradation only become more nightmarish. In addition to human rights violations, occupation forces have systematically destroyed the natural and urban environment. They have razed trees and other greenery. Tanks rumble through the streets and over pavements, spreading clouds of dust, bursting water mains and filling the sewers with rubble. Gardens are set on fire and houses are demolished. Then, too, there is the noise pollution caused by the deafening sound of low-flying aircraft. The current state of the road to Baghdad international airport illustrates the extent of the devastation. Whereas this road was once bordered by kilometres of trees and park land, today it is a barren desert patrolled by American tanks and armoured vehicles. The same applies to the Baghdad- Jordan highway. It is difficult to perceive any logistic purpose for such gratuitous vandalism beyond the humiliation of the Iraqi people. In the face of the crimes that the occupying forces are perpetrating against the Iraqi people and their country, society and way of life, the Iraqi people appeal to human rights activists, opponents of the unlawful occupation and all other humanitarian minded people to take all necessary peaceful measures to end this suffering and ensure that its victims receive appropriate moral and material compensation. * The writer is director of the Baghdad Centre for Human Rights.
