Feminist Peace Network

As this report from IRIN clearly indicated, women are being imprisoned in Iraq in violation of the Geneva Conventions,

“Nearly four months ago, an Iraqi army force raided a house in western Baghdad looking for a suspected insurgent accused of launching attacks against Iraqi security forces but they took his sister instead, according to her.

“They didn’t believe us when we told them that he had no links with any militant groups and he was only abroad for business; they told us that he would surrender himself when they jailed me,” said his 44-year-old sister who wants only her initials H.A to be used as she fears reprisals.

“Thank God they didn’t sexually abuse me, but they beat me during my nearly one month in prison and I was subjected to loud music, and the lights were never turned off in my cell. This was done to force me not to sleep and then they let me talk to my family when I was crying,” she said.

“When my brother returned they interrogated him for about two weeks and then we were told ’sorry we had wrong intelligence’.”"

Nadira Habib, deputy head of Iraq’s parliamentary committee for women’s and children’s affairs reports that,

“(T)here are 199 female detainees in the Iraqi-run al-Adala prison in Baghdad’s northern Kadhimiyah area, while it is not clear how many women are held in US-run prisons.

“No one knows how many female detainees are now in prisons which are run by US forces as they always refuse requests from our committee to visit them,� Nadira said.

She said the latest request her committee had made to the US forces was in July when it asked for permission to visit prisons at Baghdad airport and Bucca in Basra. Their request, she said, had been rejected.

“But estimates we get from lawyers who interview these detainees indicate that there are no more than 50 female detainees in these [US-run] prisons.â€?”

The committee is calling for the immediate release of female detainees from both Iraqi and U.S. run prisons in Iraq.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities