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Families paint troubling picture of
Kurdish jails in Kurdistan
25.2.2008
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Allegations of torture and fears of imprisonment
concern advocates
February 25, 2008
HALABJA, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', --
A picture of a young bearded man hangs in Rabia
Fatah's living room, and when she looks at it, she
shakes with sobs.
Her son, Dana Ahmed Abdul Rahman, has been in prison
for a year and a half. She doesn't know why. She
doesn't know when he'll be released. All she has is
the photo — and memories of her first visit with
him, 50 days after he was hauled away in the middle
of the night by the Asaysh,www.ekurd.net
the U.S.-backed Kurdish
government's security intelligence agency.
"They'd tortured him," Fatah, 60, said, fingering
her black dress spotted with blue and white flowers.
"His face was as black as my dress."
Dana Ahmed Abdul Rahman is one of hundreds of men
who've been tossed into Kurdish jails in what
advocates and families charge is a growing human
rights crisis. It's in a region that the Bush
administration touts as one of Iraq's success
stories, where violence is rare and Western
investment is rising.
Alleged crackdown
Many of the imprisoned men are affiliated with
Islamist political parties, and Kurdish officials
say they're being held because of possible terrorist
links. But their families and human-rights advocates
say they think the arrests are part of a crackdown
on Islamists by the region's two most powerful
political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party
and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The men's families allege that the Kurdish regional
government, which touts Iraqi Kurdistan as "the
other Iraq," where democracy and freedom flourish
and security is assured, is repressive and harsh.
Comparisons to the regime of Saddam Hussein and his
Baath party are frequent.
"What do you think — they won't come after you leave
and ask us who you were, what we talked about?" said
the brother of one prisoner in explaining why he
wouldn't give his name. He said he'd been imprisoned
five times during Saddam's rule and three times by
Kurdish authorities since 1991,www.ekurd.net
when the United States
imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq that
allowed an autonomous Kurdistan to flourish.
"My brother's in prison. Don't put me in prison,
too," he said.
Prisoners' families say that loved ones are often
held in isolation for months, that no legal
proceedings are scheduled and that the prisoners are
often severely beaten. Prisoners say the jails of
the Asaysh are jammed, though few are willing to
speak openly, even after their release, for fear
they'll be snatched up again and sent back.
Months without charges
The central government's Ministry of Human Rights in
Baghdad doesn't inspect the prisons and has no
authority over them. A spokesman for the regional
government's Ministry of Human Rights, Nizam Dlband,
acknowledged that some prisoners have been held for
months without charges.
But he denied that abuse is routine and said the
ministry moves quickly to ensure that innocent
people are released and that those facing criminal
charges are tried.
"The ministry has not received any proof or evidence
or any complaints supported by such evidence to
prove that the prisoners were put in solitary cells
for such long periods or that they're being abused
or tortured," he said. "No one has filed a complaint
with us that is supported with such proof, and the
allegations have no legal weight without proof."
His denials were echoed by the head of the Asaysh in
Sulaimaniyah, Wasta Hassan, who said that a judge
authorizes all of the arrests.
"Do you think we are monsters?" he said. "We are
human beings, and we were in the Baathist regime's
jails."
Ahmed Fatah Saeed, 70, asked if talking about his
son's arrest would help or make the torture in the
prison worse. His son, Hikmat Ahmed Fatah, is a
member of an Islamist political party. He was held
in isolation for six months before his family saw
him. They still don't know why he's been jailed.
"If we think this is worse than the Baathist regime
we will never say," said his father. "But when you
find out everything you will see they are worse."
Mc.Clatchy News
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