on-going human rights abuses by OUR military (03/18/04 - AI)

[diamond14]

(expect much much more to come out soon....with brave American soldiers exposing WAR CRIMES within their own ranks...more will come out...thanks to the BRAVE American Soldiers who exposed the war criminals within their ranks...true American HEROS)....


18 March 2004

Iraq

One year on the human rights situation remains dire

-snips-

Killings of civilians

More than 10,000 Iraqi civilians are thought to have been killed since 20 March 2003 as a direct result of the military intervention in Iraq, either during the war or in violent incidents during the subsequent occupation. The number is an estimate - no one in authority in Iraq is willing or able to catalogue the killings. "We don't have the capacity to track all civilian casualties", admitted US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt in February 2004.(2) A different attitude has been shown towards non-Iraqi civilians and soldiers who have been killed.

Killings by Coalition Forces

Scores of civilians have been killed apparently as a result of excessive use of force by US troops or have been shot dead in disputed circumstances. For example, US soldiers have shot and killed scores of Iraqi demonstrators in several incidents, including seven in Mosul on 15 April 2003, at least 15 in Falluja on 29 April and at least two outside the Republican Palace in Baghdad on 18 June.

In November 2003 the US military said it had paid out US $1.5 million to Iraqi civilians to settle claims by victims or relatives of victims for personal injury, death or damage to property. Some of the 10,402 claims reportedly filed concerned incidents in which US soldiers had shot dead or seriously wounded Iraqi civilians with no apparent cause.(4)

Administration of justice

On 12 December, 65-year-old Amal Salim Madi, whose three sons were arrested in October, joined a demonstration in Baghdad demanding rights for prisoners. She said, "The Americans said they were taking off for an hour of questioning. We have not seen them since." (6) Her sons are among the new generation of missing people in Iraq. They are not ending up in mass graves, as many did under the former Iraqi government, but they are lost to their families - held somewhere in the system of detention centres being run by the occupying forces in Iraq. Adil Allami, a lawyer with the Human Rights Organization of Iraq, said in October 2003: "Iraq has turned into one big Guantanamo", referring to the US military prison in Cuba where hundreds of individuals suspected of "terrorist" acts remain held without charge.(7)


Incommunicado and unlawful detention

The CPA published a list of 8,500 detainees on the Internet. Most are being held indefinitely and without charge as "suspected terrorists" or "security" detainees.(9) Families waiting outside Abu Ghraib prison say most of their relatives were picked up in indiscriminate raids.

Conditions in many of the detention centres are harsh. There have been many unconfirmed reports of hunger strikes and revolts in prisons. The CPA acknowledged that three prisoners were killed and eight wounded during an uprising in Abu Ghraib prison on 24 November.


http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140062004

[Karenina]

1. March 18.

Today, NO RESPONSE.