Coalition Forces Imprison
Iraqi
Children
By Neil
Mackay
The Sunday Herald - UK
8-1-4
- British forces are arresting children in Iraq and
handing them to US forces who interrogate and detain them indefinitely
in prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib.
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- A Sunday Herald investigation has uncovered an
internal Unicef report written in June that reveals that children in
Basra, which is controlled by UK forces, are being �arrested for alleged
activities targeting the occupying forces�.
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- The investigation has also established that at least
100 children, some as young as 10, are being detained.
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- Iraqi TV reporter Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz says he saw
the children�s wing in Abu Ghraib when he was arbitrarily arrested by US
soldiers while making a documentary.
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- He said there were boys under the age of puberty in
the jail and 'certainly hundreds of children'.
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- He said he heard the cries of a 12-year-old girl who
had been beaten. She was calling out: 'They have undressed me.'
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- He also told of a 15-year-old boy being soaked
repeatedly with hoses and then being taken to look at his father, who
was also in jail and had been hooded.
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- A US soldier, Sergeant Samuel Provance, who served at
Abu Ghraib, has also blown the whistle on child prisoners being abused.
He told how interrogators soaked a 16-year-old prisoner, covered him in
mud and then used his suffering to break his father, who was also a
prisoner, during interrogation.
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- Unicef has been denied access to jails holding
children with the coalition powers citing �poor security� as the
reason.
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- Between January and May this year the International
Committee for the Red Cross registered 107 juveniles being held in six
different coalition jails.
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- More...
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- A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that
coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu
Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees some as young as 10
are also being subjected to rape and torture
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- It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas
says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the
notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The kid was hurting very bad and
they covered all the doors with sheets," he said in a statement given to
investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. "Then, when I heard
the screaming I climbed the door and I saw [the soldier's name is
deleted] who was wearing a military uniform." Hilas, who was himself
threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in
horrific detail how the soldier raped "the little kid".
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- In another witness statement, passed to the Sunday
Herald, former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod said: "[I saw] two boys naked
and they were cuffed together face to face and [a US soldier] was
beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and
there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners. The
prisoners, two of them, were young."
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- It's not certain exactly how many children are being
held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a Sunday Herald investigation
suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where
they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to
them during their detention.
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- Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of
children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef
report written in June. The report has surprisingly not been
made public. A key section on child protection, headed "Children in
Conflict with the Law or with Coalition Forces", reads: "In July and
August 2003, several meetings were conducted with CPA (Coalition
Provisional Authority) and Ministry of Justice to address issues related
to juvenile justice and the situation of children detained by the
coalition forces Unicef is working through a variety of channels to try
and learn more about conditions for children who are imprisoned or
detained, and to ensure that their rights are respected."
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- Another section reads: "Information on the number,
age, gender and conditions of incarceration is limited. In Basra and
Karbala children arrested for alleged activities targeting the occupying
forces are reported to be routinely transferred to an internee facility
in Um Qasr. The categorisation of these children as 'internees' is
worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with
family, expectation of trial or due process."
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- The report also states: "A detention centre for
children was established in Baghdad, where according to ICRC
(International Committee of the Red Cross) a significant number of
children were detained. Unicef was informed that the coalition forces
were planning to transfer all children in adult facilities to this
'specialised' child detention centre. In July 2003, Unicef requested a
visit to the centre but access was denied. Poor security in the area of
the detention centre has prevented visits by independent observers like
the ICRC since last December.
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- "The perceived unjust detention of Iraqi males,
including youths, for suspected activities against the occupying forces
has become one of the leading causes for the mounting frustration among
Iraqi youths and the potential for radicalisation of this population
group."
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- Journalists in Germany have also been investigating
the detention and abuse of children in Iraq. One reporter, Thomas
Reutter of the TV programme Report Mainz, interviewed a US army sergeant
called Samuel Provance, who is banned from speaking about his six months
stationed in Abu Ghraib but told Reutter of how one 16-year-old Iraqi
boy was arrested.
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- "He was terribly afraid," Provance said. "He had the
skinniest arms I've ever seen. He was trembling all over. His wrists
were so thin we couldn't even put handcuffs on him. Right when I saw him
for the first time, and took him for interrogation, I felt sorry for
him.
-
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- "The interrogation specialists poured water over him
and put him into a car. Then they drove with him through the night, and
at that time it was very, very cold. Then they smeared him with mud and
showed him to his father, who was also in custody. They had tried out
other interrogation methods on him, but he wasn't to be brought to talk.
The interrogation specialists told me, after the father had seen his son
in this state, his heart broke. He wept and promised to tell them
everything they wanted to know."
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- An Iraqi TV reporter Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz saw the
Abu Ghraib children's wing when he was arrested by Americans while
making a documentary. He spent 74 days in Abu Ghraib.
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- "I saw a camp for children there," he said. "Boys,
under the age of puberty. There were certainly hundreds of children in
this camp." Al-Baz said he heard a 12-year-old girl crying. Her brother
was also held in the jail. One night guards came into her cell. "She was
beaten," said al-Baz. "I heard her call out, 'They have undressed me.
They have poured water over me.'"
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- He says he heard her cries and whimpering daily
this, in turn, caused other prisoners to cry as they listened to her.
Al-Baz also told of an ill 15-year-old boy who was soaked repeatedly
with hoses until he collapsed. Guards then brought in the child's father
with a hood over his head. The boy collapsed again.
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- Although most of the children are held in US custody,
the Sunday Herald has established that some are held by the British
Army. British soldiers tend to arrest children in towns like Basra,
which are under UK control, then hand the youngsters over to the
Americans who interrogate them and detain them.
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- Between January and May this year the Red Cross
registered a total of 107 juveniles in detention during 19 visits to six
coalition prisons. The aid organisation's Rana Sidani said they had no
complete information about the ages of those detained, or how they had
been treated. The deteriorating security situation has prevented the Red
Cross visiting all detention centres.
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- Amnesty International is outraged by the detention of
children. It is aware of "numerous human rights violations against Iraqi
juveniles, including detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and
killings". Amnesty has interviewed former detainees who say they've seen
boys as young as 10 in Abu Ghraib.
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- The organisation's leaders have called on the
coalition governments to give concrete information on how old the
children are, how many are detained, why and where they are being held,
and in what circumstances they are being detained. They also want to
know if the children have been tortured.
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- Alistair Hodgett, media director of Amnesty
International USA, said the coalition forces needed to be "transparent"
about their policy of child detentions, adding: "Secrecy is one thing
that rings alarm bells." Amnesty was given brief access to one jail in
Mosul, he said, but has been repeatedly turned away from all others. He
pointed out that even countries "which don't have good records", such as
Libya, gave Amnesty access to prisons. "Denying access just fuels the
rumour mill," he said.
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- Hodgett added that British and US troops should not be
detaining any Iraqis let alone children following the recent
handover of power. "They should all be held by Iraqi authorities," he
said. "When the coalition handed over Saddam they should have handed
over the other 3000 detainees."
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- The British Ministry of Defence confirmed UK forces
had handed over prisoners to US troops, but a spokes man said he did not
know the ages of any detainees given to the Americans.
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- The MoD also admitted it was currently holding one
prisoner aged under 18 at Shaibah prison near Um Qasr. Since the
invasion Britain has detained, and later released, 65 under-18s. The MoD
claimed the ICRC had access to British jails and detainee lists.
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- High-placed officials in the Pentagon and Centcom told
the Sunday Herald that children as young as 14 were being held by US
forces. "We do have juveniles detained," a source said. "They have been
detained as they are deemed to be a threat or because they have acted
against the coalition or Iraqis."
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- Officially, the Pentagon says it is holding "around 60
juvenile detainees primarily aged 16 and 17", although when it was
pointed out that the Red Cross estimate is substantially higher, a
source admitted "numbers may have gone up, we might have detained more
kids".
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- Officials would not comment about children under the
age of 16 being held prisoner. Sources said: "It's a real challenge
ascertaining their ages. Unlike the UK or the US, they don't have IDs or
birth certificates." The Sunday Herald has been told, however, that at
least five children aged under 16 are being kept at Abu Ghraib and Camp
Bucca.
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- A highly placed source in the Pentagon said: "We have
done investigations into accusations of juveniles being abused and raped
and can't find anything that resembles that."
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- The Pentagon's official policy is to segregate
juvenile prisoners from the rest of the prison population, and allow
young inmates to join family members also being detained. "Our main
concern is that they are not abused or harassed by older detainees. We
know they need special treatment," an official said.
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- Pentagon sources said they were unaware how long child
prisoners were kept in jail but said their cases were reviewed every 90
days. The last review was early last month. The sources confirmed the
children had been questioned and interrogated when initially detained,
but could not say whether this was "an adult-style interrogation".
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- The Norwegian government, which is part of the
"coalition of the willing", has already said it will tell the US that
the alleged torture of children is intolerable. Odd Jostein S�ter,
parliamentary secretary at the Norwegian prime minister's office, said:
"Such assaults are unacceptable. It is against international laws and it
is also unacceptable from a moral point of view. This is why we react
strongly We are addressing this in a very severe and direct way and
present concrete demands. This is damaging the struggle for democracy
and human rights in Iraq."
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- In Denmark, which is also in the coalition, Save the
Children called on its government to tell the occupying forces to order
the immediate release of child detainees. Neals Hurdal, head of the
Danish Save the Children, said the y had heard rumours of children in
Basra being maltreated in custody since May.
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- Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was "extremely
disturbed" that the coalition was holding children for long periods in
jails notorious for torture. HRW also criticised the policy of
categorising children as "security detainees", saying this did not give
carte blanche for them to be held indefinitely. HRW said if there was
evidence the children had committed crimes then they should be tried in
Iraqi courts, otherwise they should be returned to their
families.
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- Unicef is "profoundly disturbed" by reports of
children being abused in coalition jails. Alexandra Yuster, Unicef's
senior adviser on child detention, said that under international law
children should be detained only as a last resort and only then for the
shortest possible time.
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- They should have access to lawyers and their families,
be kept safe, healthy, educated, well-fed and not be subjected to any
form of mental or physical punishment, she added. Unicef is now
"desperately" trying to get more information on the fate of the children
currently detained in coalition jails.
- � newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights
reserved http://WWW.SUNDAYHERALD.COM/43796
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