06 Feb 2011
By Khudr Khallat
Dohuk - A Turkomani Front spokesman said on Sunday that Turkomani demonstrators will soon take to the streets of Talafar to protest over their marginalization from the country's political process after failing to secure the post of Republican Vice President.
Elias Nouri Elias told AKnews that alongside the planned protests complaints will be issued to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Kurdish President Massoud Barzani as well as to various international bodies, accusing the government of "depriving" them of the vice presidency.
"We know that the protest will not achieve anything but we seek to make our voices heard by all people, (to know) that the rights we are demanding have not been met," he said.
Elias did not set a date for the planned protests.
The Iraqi Turkomani Front which belongs to the al-Iraqiya list announced two week ago that the Turkomani MPs had nominated Iden Hilmi as their candidate for the post of Vice President of the Republic.
On Friday, in response to news reports indicating that President Talabani had nominated Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Khudair al-Khuzaie from the National Coalition (NC) and Tariq al-Hashimi from the al-Iraqiya List to fill the three vice presidencies, Hilmi told AKnews that the nominations revealed a lack of commitment to the achievement of national partnership in the country.
In response to reports from internal sources that President Talabani may ask parliament to approve the nomination of a fourth vice president from among the Turkomani, Hilmi said that this could be a viable solution.
At present there are provisions in the Iraqi constitution for three vice presidencies beneath the President of the Republic."Parliament can arrive at some solutions by amending the law of the President," Hilmi said, "...adding a fourth that can represent the turkomani.
"The Turkomani deputies nominated for the position alongside Hilmi are Abbas al-Bayati, Mohammed al-Bayati and Fawzi Akram Tarzi.
© AK News 2011
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110207083149
mardi 8 février 2011
lundi 7 février 2011
Iraq Bulletin 5th February 2011
Hundreds of Iraqi citizens protested the newly established government and the Iraqi National Assembly in Iraq's capital city Baghdad. It was noted that most of the protestors consisted of young people. The protestors underlined the unemployment issue in the country and the indifference of those responsible for state affairs.
Excerpts from the Iraqi Agenda:
The Deputy Governor of Necef in Iraq said; "The civil aviation authorities of Iraq and Turkey have come to an agreement regarding the realization of 36 weekly flights between the two countries. The relevant agreement shall start next March. "
***
Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Zebari said that the Arab Summit to be held in Baghdad would not be postponed due to the incidents taking place in some Arab countries and underlined that the summit would take place next March.
***
Hundreds of Iraqi citizens protested the newly established government and the Iraqi National Assembly in Iraq's capital city Baghdad. It was noted that most of the protestors consisted of young people. The protestors underlined the unemployment issue in the country and the indifference of those responsible for state affairs.
***
The Iraqi Ministry of Justice requested that the Red Cross in Iraq visit the prisons in the country in order to carry out a study. An official from the Ministry of Justice said: "we have received information regarding gross allegations of violence and torture applied in Iraqi prisons; if this is the case then the Red Cross must carry out its duty."
Kerkuk.net
Excerpts from the Iraqi Agenda:
The Deputy Governor of Necef in Iraq said; "The civil aviation authorities of Iraq and Turkey have come to an agreement regarding the realization of 36 weekly flights between the two countries. The relevant agreement shall start next March. "
***
Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Zebari said that the Arab Summit to be held in Baghdad would not be postponed due to the incidents taking place in some Arab countries and underlined that the summit would take place next March.
***
Hundreds of Iraqi citizens protested the newly established government and the Iraqi National Assembly in Iraq's capital city Baghdad. It was noted that most of the protestors consisted of young people. The protestors underlined the unemployment issue in the country and the indifference of those responsible for state affairs.
***
The Iraqi Ministry of Justice requested that the Red Cross in Iraq visit the prisons in the country in order to carry out a study. An official from the Ministry of Justice said: "we have received information regarding gross allegations of violence and torture applied in Iraqi prisons; if this is the case then the Red Cross must carry out its duty."
Kerkuk.net
samedi 5 février 2011
5 Year Old Child Heads Million Strong Demo in Alexandria Egypt
He is chanting about freedom, the nation, the need for the regime of Hosni Mubarak to fall, and complaining about “American agents.”
vendredi 4 février 2011
IRAQ: False Alarm on Oil Exports or Not? by Reidar Visser
Posted by Reidar Visser on Wednesday, 2 February 2011 13:57
The surprising aspect of the failure to start oil export from Kurdistan yesterday was not the fact that the target date of 1 February was missed. This happens in Iraqi politics all the time: Each day, for almost every issue of significance, one can find someone saying it will be solved “in two days”, others claiming it will take “two weeks” and some maintaining “the rest of the month” is needed. Rather, the remarkable thing was that the messenger in this case was someone who has a businesslike reputation and is seen as reasonably realistic by friends and opponents alike – the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Barham Salih.
It is still unclear whether the delay means the oil-export issue will simply become one among several items in the growing quagmire of pending questions in Iraqi politics or whether a solution is actually around the corner. The new government that was announced in late December 2010 remains incomplete without security ministers. The controversial, US-supported strategic policy council remains bogged down in detailed disputes about the status of its chairman/president (that technical distinction is part of the dispute!) and the country has no legally elected vice presidents (not that they are needed, but this issue keeps deflecting energy from potentially useful discussions). Before parliament can give the budget the full attention it requires, it needs to elect more committee heads and update its own bylaws, and with the recent outrage over Maliki’s moves to bring the “independent” commissions under closer control by the executive, there is more talk than ever about actually trying to craft the special legislation for the federal supreme court called for under the constitution (which requires a two-thirds majority in parliament).
The oil-export issue itself has some additional problematic aspects that have received a certain degree of attention already and are likely to cause more widespread discussion once the issue reaches the full parliament through the budget, regardless of whether oil is actually about to start flowing (and some media reports suggest this is indeed the case). Ever since the first oil-export attempt was aborted in 2009 and local sales of oil were initiated in Kurdistan by the local authorities in order to compensate the foreign companies working there, voices critical of these local sales have been heard in Baghdad. When Ashti Hawrami, the KRG natural resources minister, told The New York Times on 8 July 2010, at a time when the local sales of oil were peaking, that proceeds from oil smuggled to Iran were being used to compensate foreign companies operating in the region, it certainly added to the controversy (even through Hawrami later claimed journalists had failed to understand his distinction between oil and oil by-products). At any rate, going forward, it seems clear that a part of the proposed new deal on oil “exports” from Kurdistan actually involves not exports as such but rather boosting production for local markets, and if this relates to some kind of special quota for Kurdistan that will be exempted from the general, population-based national revenue-distribution formula and hence less transparent – and if local sales are done according to a different formula than export oil (i.e. if more money gets pocketed by the foreign companies) – then it could certainly prompt criticism from Iraqi parliamentarians who are likely to ask tough questions about any deviance from the constitutionally mandated, universal pattern of distribution across Iraq. Again, it is critical to note that as far as oil is concerned, there is not one iota of difference between a federal region and a governorate when it comes to the relevant constitutional provisions.
Meanwhile, the Kurds have made one important gain in that Khalid Shwani has reportedly been made head of the important legal committee in parliament, a job which the secular Iraqiyya had been seeking. The position is potentially useful, though particularly as a tool of obstruction. The challenge for the Kurds is that their long list of demands to Maliki (the 19 points) involve complicated pieces of legislation on issues like the presidency council and energy that are likely to stay in parliament for a very long time before they ever reach the legal committee, no matter what Shwani does (or what Maliki has promised). Ultimately, though, it is likely that these elected forums, rather than backroom deals, will decide the overall structure of Iraq’s oil-export regime in the long run, regardless of whether some kind of short-term fudge will enable oil to flow from Kurdistan in the near future.
To read comments please click on:
http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/false-alarm-on-oil-exports-or-not/#comments
The surprising aspect of the failure to start oil export from Kurdistan yesterday was not the fact that the target date of 1 February was missed. This happens in Iraqi politics all the time: Each day, for almost every issue of significance, one can find someone saying it will be solved “in two days”, others claiming it will take “two weeks” and some maintaining “the rest of the month” is needed. Rather, the remarkable thing was that the messenger in this case was someone who has a businesslike reputation and is seen as reasonably realistic by friends and opponents alike – the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Barham Salih.
It is still unclear whether the delay means the oil-export issue will simply become one among several items in the growing quagmire of pending questions in Iraqi politics or whether a solution is actually around the corner. The new government that was announced in late December 2010 remains incomplete without security ministers. The controversial, US-supported strategic policy council remains bogged down in detailed disputes about the status of its chairman/president (that technical distinction is part of the dispute!) and the country has no legally elected vice presidents (not that they are needed, but this issue keeps deflecting energy from potentially useful discussions). Before parliament can give the budget the full attention it requires, it needs to elect more committee heads and update its own bylaws, and with the recent outrage over Maliki’s moves to bring the “independent” commissions under closer control by the executive, there is more talk than ever about actually trying to craft the special legislation for the federal supreme court called for under the constitution (which requires a two-thirds majority in parliament).
The oil-export issue itself has some additional problematic aspects that have received a certain degree of attention already and are likely to cause more widespread discussion once the issue reaches the full parliament through the budget, regardless of whether oil is actually about to start flowing (and some media reports suggest this is indeed the case). Ever since the first oil-export attempt was aborted in 2009 and local sales of oil were initiated in Kurdistan by the local authorities in order to compensate the foreign companies working there, voices critical of these local sales have been heard in Baghdad. When Ashti Hawrami, the KRG natural resources minister, told The New York Times on 8 July 2010, at a time when the local sales of oil were peaking, that proceeds from oil smuggled to Iran were being used to compensate foreign companies operating in the region, it certainly added to the controversy (even through Hawrami later claimed journalists had failed to understand his distinction between oil and oil by-products). At any rate, going forward, it seems clear that a part of the proposed new deal on oil “exports” from Kurdistan actually involves not exports as such but rather boosting production for local markets, and if this relates to some kind of special quota for Kurdistan that will be exempted from the general, population-based national revenue-distribution formula and hence less transparent – and if local sales are done according to a different formula than export oil (i.e. if more money gets pocketed by the foreign companies) – then it could certainly prompt criticism from Iraqi parliamentarians who are likely to ask tough questions about any deviance from the constitutionally mandated, universal pattern of distribution across Iraq. Again, it is critical to note that as far as oil is concerned, there is not one iota of difference between a federal region and a governorate when it comes to the relevant constitutional provisions.
Meanwhile, the Kurds have made one important gain in that Khalid Shwani has reportedly been made head of the important legal committee in parliament, a job which the secular Iraqiyya had been seeking. The position is potentially useful, though particularly as a tool of obstruction. The challenge for the Kurds is that their long list of demands to Maliki (the 19 points) involve complicated pieces of legislation on issues like the presidency council and energy that are likely to stay in parliament for a very long time before they ever reach the legal committee, no matter what Shwani does (or what Maliki has promised). Ultimately, though, it is likely that these elected forums, rather than backroom deals, will decide the overall structure of Iraq’s oil-export regime in the long run, regardless of whether some kind of short-term fudge will enable oil to flow from Kurdistan in the near future.
To read comments please click on:
http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/false-alarm-on-oil-exports-or-not/#comments
jeudi 3 février 2011
mercredi 2 février 2011
The Turkic character of KASHGAR city in East Turkistan and of KERKUK city in Turkmeneli (Iraq) must be preserved!
The City of Kashgar
An Oasis of the Silk Road on the Brink of Extinction
Conference at the EU Parliament
on 27th January 2011
Organised by the Office of Frieda Brepoels MEP
In collaboration with
UNPO & Belgian Uyghur Association
ITF EU representative Dr. Hassan Aydinli spoke to the organiser of the conference, MEP Frieda Brepoels, about the city of KERKUK , the Turkmens’ cultural capital in Iraq , saying that KERKUK, as KASHGAR, deserved to receive the attention of international organisations such as UNESCO, the Society for Threatened Peoples, etc. He informed her that under the arabization policy of the former regime several important Turkmen monuments and traditional Turkish houses in Kerkuk had been destroyed and that since April 2003 when the U.S. military allowed the Kurdish Peshmerga to invade and occupy the city the Kurds too were trying to obliterate the city’s Turkmen character.
MEP Frieda Brepoels who was a practising architect before turning her energies to Belgian politics and before being elected in 2004 to the EU Parliament showed great interest when Dr. Aydinli spoke about the need to preserve the city’s Turkmen character by protecting and/or renovating its numerous ancient monuments, such as the Citadel and the traditional Turkish houses. To better illustrate the urgency of this matter Dr. Aydinli gave her a copy of Dr. Suphi Saatçi’s book “The Urban Fabric and Traditional Houses of Kirkuk ”. Ms. Brepoels thanked him and said she would read it with great interest.
مدينة كاشغر
واحة من طريق الحرير على حافة الانقراض
مؤتمر في برلمان الاتحاد الاوربي
في 27 يناير 2011
نظمت من قبل فريدا بريبولس عضوة البرلمان الاوربي
بالتعاون مع
منظمة الامم والشعوب غير الممثلة وجمعية الايغور البلجيكيين
ممثل الجبهة التركمانية العراقية في الاتحاد الأوروبي الدكتور حسن آيدينلي خاطب منظمة المؤتمر فريدا بريبولس عضوة البرلمان الاوربي حول مدينة كركوك كونها عاصمة التركمان الثقافية في العراق قائلا : ان كركوك ، وكاشغر ، يستحقان الحصول على الاهتمام المطلوب من قبل المنظمات الدولية مثل اليونسكو ، وجمعية الدفاع عن الشعوب المهددة ، الخ. وأبلغ لها أنه في إطار سياسة التعريب التي مارسها النظام السابق المعالم الهامة للتركمان والمنازل التقليدية التركية في كركوك قد دمرت ، ومنذ ابريل 2003 عندما سمح الجيش الأمريكي لقوات البيشمركة الكردية لغزو واحتلال مدينة كركوك حيث حاول الأكراد طمس طابع كركوك التركمانية . فريدا بريبولس عضوة البرلمان الأوربي التي كانت تمارس الهندسة المعمارية قيل تحويل طاقتها الى السياسة البلجيكية وانتخابها في عام 2004 كعضوة في الرلمان الاوربي قد اظهرت اهتماما واضحا لحديث الكتور حسن آيدينلي حول ضرورة الحفاظ على طابع المدينة التركمانية من خلال حماية و / أو ترميم معالمها القديمة العديدة ، مثل القلعة والبيوت التقليدية التركية. ولتوضيح افضل للحاجة الملحة لهذه المسألة الدكتور آيدينلي قدم نسخة من كتاب "النسيج الحضري والبيوت التقليدية في كركوك" للدكتور صبحي الساعاتي . السيدة بريبولس شكرته قئلة بانها سوف تقرأه باهتمام كبير
mardi 1 février 2011
HRW: Iraq: Secret Jail Uncovered in Baghdad
Iraq: Secret Jail Uncovered in Baghdad
Detainees Describe Torture at Another Facility Also Run by Elite Security Forces
Human Rights Watch
HRW, February 1, 2011
(Baghdad) - Elite security forces controlled by the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq are operating a secret detention site in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said today. The elite forces are also torturing detainees with impunity at a different facility in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said.
Beginning on November 23, 2010, and continuing over the next three to four days, Iraqi authorities transferred more than 280 detainees to a secret site within Camp Justice, a sprawling military base in northwest Baghdad, interviews and classified government documents obtained by Human Rights Watch reveal. The Army's 56th Brigade, also known as the Baghdad Brigade, and the Counter-Terrorism Service, both under the authority of the prime minister's office, control this secret site. The hurried transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to examine conditions at the detainees' previous location at Camp Honor in the Green Zone. Human Rights Watch has also obtained a list of more than 300 detainees held at Camp Honor just before the transfer to Camp Justice. Almost all were accused of terrorism.
"Revelations of secret jails in the heart of Baghdad completely undermine the Iraqi government's promises to respect the rule of law," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The government needs to close these places or move them under control of the justice system, improve conditions for detainees, and make sure that anyone responsible for torture is punished."
The Iraqi government should immediately close the facilities or regularize their position and make them open for inspections and visits, Human Rights Watch said.
Approximately 80 of the 280 detainees are being held by the 56th Brigade at the secret site at Camp Justice and have had no access to lawyers or family members. Prison inspectors are not permitted to conduct visits to the section of the facility controlled by the 56th brigade, prompting fresh concerns that the brigade may be torturing detainees. According to government sources, the Counter-Terrorism Service is holding the 200 remaining transferred detainees, although the 56th Brigade maintains primary responsibility for security at the site in Baghdad's Kadhmiya neighborhood.
In one of the 18 documents obtained by Human Rights Watch, a letter from the prosecutor's office of the Higher Judicial Council asks the Office of the Prime Minister to instruct officials at the Camp Justice site to stop preventing prison inspectors and relatives from visiting detainees. The letter, dated December 6, 2010, says such a refusal "meets neither legal nor humanitarian standards, unless [the refusal is] specifically ordered by a judge at a specialized court."A second letter, dated January 13, 2011, from the justice minister to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, through which the prime minister controls Iraqi security forces, stated that a 56th Brigade officer prevented prison inspectors from the Human Rights Ministry from visiting the site.
The secret detention site is located within a legitimate Justice Ministry detention facility at Camp Justice, known as Justice 2 (Sijn al-Adaleh 2), which holds just over 1,000 other detainees. Camp Justice is the site of the former "Fifth Department" (al-Sha'ba al-Khamsa) intelligence office notorious during the rule of Saddam Hussein for torture and disappearances. The former dictator was executed there in 2006.
Camp Honor, from which the detainees were transferred, became the subject of media scrutiny on January 23, after the Los Angeles Times uncovered abuse there and described the conditions as "miserable." The article said detainees were held in cramped windowless cells that reeked of human excrement.
Recent interviews by Human Rights Watch of more than a dozen former detainees from Camp Honor had documented how detainees are held incommunicado and in inhumane conditions, often for months at a time. Detainees described in detail the wide ranging abuses they endured during interrogation sessions at the facility, usually to extract false confessions. They said interrogators beat them, hung them upside down for hours at a time, administered electric shocks to various body parts, including the genitals, and asphyxiated them repeatedly with plastic bags put over their heads until they passed out.
In interviews with Human Rights Watch in December, former detainees described the abuse at Camp Honor:
One detainee said on December 26 that: "The cell was so crowded that we had to take turns standing and lying down, and would try to let someone lie down if they were an old man, or especially if they had just been brought back from interrogation. Then we usually could not stand."
Another said on December 18 that: "I was blindfolded and put on the floor, face-down with my hands tied tightly behind my back. The interrogator stepped on my arms, and put more and more weight down on them until I was screaming."
A third detainee, who had been held in Camp Honor the summer of 2010, said in a December 27 interview that: "My hands were tied over my head and my feet were put in water, then they shocked me in my head and my neck and my chest. The interrogators beat me repeatedly and told me that they would go to my house and rape my sister if I did not sign a confession, so I did. I did not even know what I was confessing to."
In response to the Los Angeles Times article, which said Camp Honor is run by the 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service, Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim, told Agence France-Presse on January 24 that his ministry alone controlled the site.
"It is my responsibility, and I deny all these accusations - they are all lies," he said. "Families can visit their sons or husbands, lawyers can visit them regularly. It's like any other prison run by the Justice Ministry."
He reiterated, "It is not true that it follows Maliki's orders - it is run by the Justice Ministry."
However, documents obtained by Human Rights Watch refute government claims that Camp Honor is controlled by the Justice Ministry. In one classified document dated August 2, 2010, the former justice minister, Dara Nour al-Din, requested that his staff obtain approval from the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to transfer detainees from Camp Honor, demonstrating the ministry's subordinate role at the facility.
In the note to his staff, the justice minister asks them to write a letter to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces "requesting permission for custody of the prisoners to be turned over" to the ministry so they can be transferred elsewhere. The document indicates that the issue arose after Deputy Justice Minister Ibrahim acknowledged that his ministry could not transfer detainees due to external interference, particularly from military interrogators.
Another document, from October 2010, signed by Ibrahim himself, says the ministry "has no objection to allowing lawyers and families to visit detainees" at Camp Honor but that, "it is only the tough security measures implemented by the Defense Ministry/56th Brigade section [of the prison] and the Counter-Terrorism administration section, and also the location of the prison in the Green Zone, that has prevented this."
In response to the Los Angeles Times article, Ibrahim also said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had visited the Camp Honor prison. But when contacted by Human Rights Watch, the ICRC spokesperson, Graziella Leite Piccolo, said that ICRC had not been able to visit Camp Honor because the government had not met the organization's criteria for such site visits, including access to the entire facility and its detainees.
"It is important to note that, even if we had been able to visit, a visit alone is not a certificate of validation, but part of a process," she said. Government sources told Human Rights Watch that authorities have prevented the Human Rights Ministry from conducting any prison inspections at Camp Honor for more than a year.
Several government sources said that although the 56th Brigade, and its sibling, the 54th Brigade, technically fall under Defense Ministry administration, the brigades' chain of command bypass the ministry. They do not report to the defense minister or army chief of staff, but instead to Maliki through the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Through this office, the prime minister also controls the Counter-Terrorism Service, which falls under no ministry and is not governed by any legislation. The Counter-Terrorism Service works closely with US Special Forces.
Military officers and officials from both the Defense and Interior ministries told Human Rights Watch that the 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service routinely conduct operations, including mass arrests and detentions, without notifying the security ministries. A high-level Interior Ministry officer told Human Rights Watch on December 18 that these units "create confusion and a dangerous atmosphere where special units who have a separate authority storm in and take people." The official said that regular security forces were afraid of these elite forces.
Another official, from the Defense Ministry, told Human Rights Watch on January 23 that contrary to the usual practice, in which security forces process detainees through the main prison system, the 56th and 54th Brigades often refuse to give up their prisoners.
"Their families and lawyers cannot visit them," he said, "and sometimes cannot even find out if they are dead or alive."
Defense Ministry officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch said there is close cooperation between the 56th and 54th Brigades, commonly referred to by military and police as "Maliki's forces." Prisoners arrested and initially held in the prison run by one brigade are often transferred to the prison run by the other.
An Interior Ministry official told Human Rights Watch on January 13 that "people come to police stations or prisons looking for their family members who have been arrested. If we find out they were taken by Maliki's forces, we don't get any information about them or have jurisdiction to do anything."
Last year, the Human Rights Ministry uncovered a secret prison run by the 54th Brigade, with the assistance of the 56th Brigade, in the old Muthanna airport in Western Baghdad. In April, Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 detainees who had been tortured at this facility over a period of months. The secret prison held about 430 detainees who had no access to their families or lawyers. The prisoners said security forces personnel kicked, whipped, and beat them, asphyxiated them, gave them electric shocks, burned them with cigarettes, and pulled out their fingernails and teeth. They said that interrogators sodomized some detainees with sticks and pistol barrels. Some young men said they had been forced to perform oral sex on interrogators and guards, and that interrogators forced detainees to molest one another sexually.
A US Embassy cable viewed by the Los Angeles Times stated that 56th Brigade interrogators had been sent to Muthanna from Camp Honor. A separate cable said the brigade "reports directly to the prime minister's office."
At the time, Maliki described the prison at Muthanna as a transit site under the control of the Defense Ministry.
However, a high-ranking Defense Ministry official distanced his ministry from the allegations of torture at Muthanna. In a classified letter to the Human Rights Ministry dated May 3, 2010, and seen by Human Rights Watch, Saleh Sarhan, general secretary to the defense minister, wrote: "Our ministry has no relationship with those military investigation committees nor to the Sur Ninewa [Muthanna] Detention Center, because both are attached to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces."
www.uruknet.info?p=74503
Detainees Describe Torture at Another Facility Also Run by Elite Security Forces
Human Rights Watch
HRW, February 1, 2011
(Baghdad) - Elite security forces controlled by the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq are operating a secret detention site in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said today. The elite forces are also torturing detainees with impunity at a different facility in Baghdad, Human Rights Watch said.
Beginning on November 23, 2010, and continuing over the next three to four days, Iraqi authorities transferred more than 280 detainees to a secret site within Camp Justice, a sprawling military base in northwest Baghdad, interviews and classified government documents obtained by Human Rights Watch reveal. The Army's 56th Brigade, also known as the Baghdad Brigade, and the Counter-Terrorism Service, both under the authority of the prime minister's office, control this secret site. The hurried transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to examine conditions at the detainees' previous location at Camp Honor in the Green Zone. Human Rights Watch has also obtained a list of more than 300 detainees held at Camp Honor just before the transfer to Camp Justice. Almost all were accused of terrorism.
"Revelations of secret jails in the heart of Baghdad completely undermine the Iraqi government's promises to respect the rule of law," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The government needs to close these places or move them under control of the justice system, improve conditions for detainees, and make sure that anyone responsible for torture is punished."
The Iraqi government should immediately close the facilities or regularize their position and make them open for inspections and visits, Human Rights Watch said.
Approximately 80 of the 280 detainees are being held by the 56th Brigade at the secret site at Camp Justice and have had no access to lawyers or family members. Prison inspectors are not permitted to conduct visits to the section of the facility controlled by the 56th brigade, prompting fresh concerns that the brigade may be torturing detainees. According to government sources, the Counter-Terrorism Service is holding the 200 remaining transferred detainees, although the 56th Brigade maintains primary responsibility for security at the site in Baghdad's Kadhmiya neighborhood.
In one of the 18 documents obtained by Human Rights Watch, a letter from the prosecutor's office of the Higher Judicial Council asks the Office of the Prime Minister to instruct officials at the Camp Justice site to stop preventing prison inspectors and relatives from visiting detainees. The letter, dated December 6, 2010, says such a refusal "meets neither legal nor humanitarian standards, unless [the refusal is] specifically ordered by a judge at a specialized court."A second letter, dated January 13, 2011, from the justice minister to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, through which the prime minister controls Iraqi security forces, stated that a 56th Brigade officer prevented prison inspectors from the Human Rights Ministry from visiting the site.
The secret detention site is located within a legitimate Justice Ministry detention facility at Camp Justice, known as Justice 2 (Sijn al-Adaleh 2), which holds just over 1,000 other detainees. Camp Justice is the site of the former "Fifth Department" (al-Sha'ba al-Khamsa) intelligence office notorious during the rule of Saddam Hussein for torture and disappearances. The former dictator was executed there in 2006.
Camp Honor, from which the detainees were transferred, became the subject of media scrutiny on January 23, after the Los Angeles Times uncovered abuse there and described the conditions as "miserable." The article said detainees were held in cramped windowless cells that reeked of human excrement.
Recent interviews by Human Rights Watch of more than a dozen former detainees from Camp Honor had documented how detainees are held incommunicado and in inhumane conditions, often for months at a time. Detainees described in detail the wide ranging abuses they endured during interrogation sessions at the facility, usually to extract false confessions. They said interrogators beat them, hung them upside down for hours at a time, administered electric shocks to various body parts, including the genitals, and asphyxiated them repeatedly with plastic bags put over their heads until they passed out.
In interviews with Human Rights Watch in December, former detainees described the abuse at Camp Honor:
One detainee said on December 26 that: "The cell was so crowded that we had to take turns standing and lying down, and would try to let someone lie down if they were an old man, or especially if they had just been brought back from interrogation. Then we usually could not stand."
Another said on December 18 that: "I was blindfolded and put on the floor, face-down with my hands tied tightly behind my back. The interrogator stepped on my arms, and put more and more weight down on them until I was screaming."
A third detainee, who had been held in Camp Honor the summer of 2010, said in a December 27 interview that: "My hands were tied over my head and my feet were put in water, then they shocked me in my head and my neck and my chest. The interrogators beat me repeatedly and told me that they would go to my house and rape my sister if I did not sign a confession, so I did. I did not even know what I was confessing to."
In response to the Los Angeles Times article, which said Camp Honor is run by the 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service, Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim, told Agence France-Presse on January 24 that his ministry alone controlled the site.
"It is my responsibility, and I deny all these accusations - they are all lies," he said. "Families can visit their sons or husbands, lawyers can visit them regularly. It's like any other prison run by the Justice Ministry."
He reiterated, "It is not true that it follows Maliki's orders - it is run by the Justice Ministry."
However, documents obtained by Human Rights Watch refute government claims that Camp Honor is controlled by the Justice Ministry. In one classified document dated August 2, 2010, the former justice minister, Dara Nour al-Din, requested that his staff obtain approval from the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to transfer detainees from Camp Honor, demonstrating the ministry's subordinate role at the facility.
In the note to his staff, the justice minister asks them to write a letter to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces "requesting permission for custody of the prisoners to be turned over" to the ministry so they can be transferred elsewhere. The document indicates that the issue arose after Deputy Justice Minister Ibrahim acknowledged that his ministry could not transfer detainees due to external interference, particularly from military interrogators.
Another document, from October 2010, signed by Ibrahim himself, says the ministry "has no objection to allowing lawyers and families to visit detainees" at Camp Honor but that, "it is only the tough security measures implemented by the Defense Ministry/56th Brigade section [of the prison] and the Counter-Terrorism administration section, and also the location of the prison in the Green Zone, that has prevented this."
In response to the Los Angeles Times article, Ibrahim also said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had visited the Camp Honor prison. But when contacted by Human Rights Watch, the ICRC spokesperson, Graziella Leite Piccolo, said that ICRC had not been able to visit Camp Honor because the government had not met the organization's criteria for such site visits, including access to the entire facility and its detainees.
"It is important to note that, even if we had been able to visit, a visit alone is not a certificate of validation, but part of a process," she said. Government sources told Human Rights Watch that authorities have prevented the Human Rights Ministry from conducting any prison inspections at Camp Honor for more than a year.
Several government sources said that although the 56th Brigade, and its sibling, the 54th Brigade, technically fall under Defense Ministry administration, the brigades' chain of command bypass the ministry. They do not report to the defense minister or army chief of staff, but instead to Maliki through the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Through this office, the prime minister also controls the Counter-Terrorism Service, which falls under no ministry and is not governed by any legislation. The Counter-Terrorism Service works closely with US Special Forces.
Military officers and officials from both the Defense and Interior ministries told Human Rights Watch that the 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service routinely conduct operations, including mass arrests and detentions, without notifying the security ministries. A high-level Interior Ministry officer told Human Rights Watch on December 18 that these units "create confusion and a dangerous atmosphere where special units who have a separate authority storm in and take people." The official said that regular security forces were afraid of these elite forces.
Another official, from the Defense Ministry, told Human Rights Watch on January 23 that contrary to the usual practice, in which security forces process detainees through the main prison system, the 56th and 54th Brigades often refuse to give up their prisoners.
"Their families and lawyers cannot visit them," he said, "and sometimes cannot even find out if they are dead or alive."
Defense Ministry officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch said there is close cooperation between the 56th and 54th Brigades, commonly referred to by military and police as "Maliki's forces." Prisoners arrested and initially held in the prison run by one brigade are often transferred to the prison run by the other.
An Interior Ministry official told Human Rights Watch on January 13 that "people come to police stations or prisons looking for their family members who have been arrested. If we find out they were taken by Maliki's forces, we don't get any information about them or have jurisdiction to do anything."
Last year, the Human Rights Ministry uncovered a secret prison run by the 54th Brigade, with the assistance of the 56th Brigade, in the old Muthanna airport in Western Baghdad. In April, Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 detainees who had been tortured at this facility over a period of months. The secret prison held about 430 detainees who had no access to their families or lawyers. The prisoners said security forces personnel kicked, whipped, and beat them, asphyxiated them, gave them electric shocks, burned them with cigarettes, and pulled out their fingernails and teeth. They said that interrogators sodomized some detainees with sticks and pistol barrels. Some young men said they had been forced to perform oral sex on interrogators and guards, and that interrogators forced detainees to molest one another sexually.
A US Embassy cable viewed by the Los Angeles Times stated that 56th Brigade interrogators had been sent to Muthanna from Camp Honor. A separate cable said the brigade "reports directly to the prime minister's office."
At the time, Maliki described the prison at Muthanna as a transit site under the control of the Defense Ministry.
However, a high-ranking Defense Ministry official distanced his ministry from the allegations of torture at Muthanna. In a classified letter to the Human Rights Ministry dated May 3, 2010, and seen by Human Rights Watch, Saleh Sarhan, general secretary to the defense minister, wrote: "Our ministry has no relationship with those military investigation committees nor to the Sur Ninewa [Muthanna] Detention Center, because both are attached to the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces."
www.uruknet.info?p=74503
Israel: We destroyed Iraq... Iraq must stay divided and isolated... The Oil of Northern Iraq will flow into Israel!
FLASHBACK
Very relevant today!
Very relevant today!
Israel: We Destroyed Iraq.. Iraq must Stay Divided and Isolated… The Oil of Northern Iraq will Flow into Israel!
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-we-destroyed-iraq-iraq-must-stay.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d475a3b180b5410%2C0
Wednesday, May 26 2010
Jouhaina News,
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-we-destroyed-iraq-iraq-must-stay.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d475a3b180b5410%2C0
Wednesday, May 26 2010
Jouhaina News,
Avi Dichter, the Israeli Internal Security Minister, said in a lecture at the ‘Israeli National Security Research Center’ “about the Israeli role in destroying Iraq after it was occupied in 2003 “we achieved in Iraq more than we expected and plan!”
Dichter confirmed that keeping Iraq weak and isolated is an Israeli national interest.“Weakening and isolating Iraq is no less important than weakening and isolating Egypt,” he said. Weakening and isolating Egypt done by diplomatic methods while everything is done to do achieve a complete and comprehensive isolation to Iraq”, Dachter added.“Iraq has vanished as a military force and as a united country. Our strategic option is to keep it divided,” he added.
“Our strategic goal is not to allow this country (Iraq) to take its regional and Arabic role back. Iraq must stay divided and isolated from its regional environment” he said.
About the role of the Kurdish parties in facilitating occupying Iraq Dichter said “the top goal for Israel is to support and provide the Kurds with weapons and training and to make them our partners in security in order to establish a Kurdish independent state in the northern part of Iraq where it can control Kirkuk’s and Kurdistan’s oil,” he added.
“The Kurdish leadership guaranteed to put the oil pipeline from Kirkuk to IBC line through Jordan. We did primary negotiations with Jordan and we reached an agreement with the Kurdish leadership in this regard. If Jordan withdrew his promises we have the substitute: Turkey. We finished putting the plans and studies to establish pipelines for water and oil with Turkey and from Turkey into Israel,” he added.
The full transcript of the lecture is below:
Nobody can ignore what we had achieved on this field (Iraq). What was achieved was beyond what we had planned. We have to recall back our primary goals in Iraq since we started interfering in it at the beginning of the seventies of the last century.
Our top goal was supporting the Kurds getting benefit from their feeling that they are persecuted ethnicity who have the right to self determination and to enjoy freedom as all other peoples. At first our colleagues in Israel- who planned for (destroying) Iraq as uri Librani the previous advisor of the ex-prime minister and our ambassador to Turkey and Ethiopia and Iran- defined the core plan for the Israelis to support the Kurds.
Our (Israeli) support to the Kurds was humble at the beginning. It was limited to a political support, mentioning the Kurds issue in the international meetings and conferences. We provided the Kurds also with money, but this was limited.
In 1972 this support had taken a security dimensions: providing the Kurds with weapons through Turkey and Iran and receiving Kurdish groups and gorillas for training in Israel and in Turkey and Iran. After the Kurdish “resistance” fall apart as a result of the agreement with Iran, the Kurdish leadership went to Turkey, Syria and Israel.
Israel for morale reasons had to stay beside the Kurds and support them till they got their national aim in achieving the self-rule in the first stage and the full state independent later on.
I won’t talk long but I have to say that now in Iraq there’s an independent Kurdish state. This state has people, land, authority, army, economic, oil. This state aims not to limit itself to Kurdistan only but to annex the northern of Iraq also; Kirkuk first, then al-Musel and may be SalahEddin city in addition to Jlolaa and Khankin.
The Kurds cant’ imagine what had achieved thanks to our support.Iraq which was in our strategic view the most dangerous challenge after it became a very huge military force. Suddenly Iraq falls apart as a military force and as a country!
Iraq, the country which was united, suddenly became divided geographically, and its people is divided, it has now a civil war which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of the Iraqis! If we watch Iraq since 2003 we would find ourselves in front of more than one perspective:
Iraq is now divided into three areas in spite of the existence of the central government.
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