First Periodical Report of Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq

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First Periodical Report of Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq
MHRI – 2005 Baghdad

The Monitoring Network for Human Rights (MHRI), which consists of more than 20 Iraqi organizations for Human Rights, made this report about the crimes and continuous violations of human rights in Iraq.

http://www.brusselstribunal.org/survey111105.htm

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To His Excellency Kofi Annan
Secretary General of United Nations
New York
23 August 2005

Excellency,

Our Monitoring Network for Human Rights (MHRI), which consists of more than 20 Iraqi organizations for Human Rights, has the honor to submit with this letter its report on the crimes and continues violations of human rights in Iraq. The preparing of this report was not an easy task.

Both security and political reasons played significant role in making this task almost impossible .Nevertheless, the report is in your hand now with vast evidence and documentations on the crimes and continuous violations of human rights in Iraq.

Therefore, we are kindly asking the High Commissioner for Human Rights to look at the content of the report in accordance with the General Assembly's resolution 48/ 141 (paragraph 4) of 20 December 1993, to investigate the serious violations of human rights in Iraq, and to relay the results of this investigation to the Commission on Human Rights to take the suitable decisions.

Excellency, we believe that the situation of human rights in Iraq , since the last report (E/CN.4/2005/4) prepared by the High Commissioner in June 2004,has severely deteriorated and has reached a point where the Commissioner on Human Rights should give serious consideration to the re-appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iraq in order to study and monitor all the violations and to encourage the establishing of the rule of Law in Iraq.
Our people are looking forward to your help to ensure the protection of the human rights of all Iraqi and to put an end to the continues violation.
Sincerely,

Muhamad Al-Darraji



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Snippets...

1. Crimes of War and Crimes Against Humanity

- First crime:

Some of the ugliest crimes committed by the occupation forces and by Iraqi military units are the ones committed in the city of Fallujah in the battles of November 2004, and which we summarize in the following:

1. The plundering of health care centers and their destruction by bombing as has taken place in the "Taleb Al-Janabi" hospital and in the Central Clinic. Further the Central Hospital was occupied; the staff and everyone in the hospital at that time were arrested. Ambulances in the city have been bombed and the rescue teams were hindered from entering the city, among them the convoy of the Ministry of Health, despite of the fact that more than 50,000 civilians still remained in the city.

2. Internationally prohibited weapons were used in the bombing of the city, such as phosphoric weapons, Napalm, bombs containing unknown gases, causing the blood to explode out of bodies. 24 carbonized bodies have been found in the area of the military neighbourhood. Surviving civilian eyewitnesses stated that the soldiers of the occupation forces entered the area wearing gas masks. Furthermore, cases of deformed newly born increased as a consequence of the use of such weapons. In a press conference, which took place during the battle, Mr. Khaled Al-Sheikhali, official of the Ministry of Health, confirmed the use of such weapons.

3. More than 280 missing persons are reported from among the inhabitants of the city of Fallujah. Their fate is still unknown. These persons are officially registered by names and by photo at the local authorities in the city. It is further estimated that the total number of missing persons exceeds 500.

4. Rescue teams, who were allowed to free the city from corpses, to prevent diseases to spread among the soldiers, affirmed that there was a great number of civilian corpses lying in areas, indicating that they were neither armed nor resisting when they were attacked. Bodies were found in beds, kitchens or on chairs, bodies of children near those of their fathers. Further they found bodies of women, their dresses torn, their features disfigured. Many of the dead showed head wounds, which indicate that they were murdered from short distance and in the manner of executions.

5. The existence of a mass grave with approximately 400 bodies in the "Sajar" area, an area protected by the US Forces, shooting anyone approaching it. The US Officials responsible for burying the dead in the city, admitted to one rescue team, that they had buried 380 bodies in this area after the end of the battle, and that these bodies had previously been stored in a refrigerator originally used for the storage of potatoes.

6. The dogs in Fallujah are infected with different diseases as a result of their eating corpses, and are now endangering the health of the citizens.

7. Arrested civilians were forced to participate in cleaning the city from the remains of the battle and what has been used in it. In one of the disposal sites of these remains, bodies of fighters and civilians, among them women and children were found. The entrance to these areas is prohibited.

8. Information on the whereabouts of some of prisoners, who were transferred to the "Buka" prison in Basra, is lost although they had been seen by other prisoners who were released later. One case is that of Sheikh Shaker Hamdan Abdullah Fayyad Al-Kabeesi, who was arrested on the 11th October 2004 in Fallujah, carrying "Buka" prisoner's number 165251, and who was supposed to be released on the 22nd of December 2004 but still remains missing.

9. Many civilians trying to escape the hell of shell firing were victims of snipers, who were following US orders to shoot at anyone who moves, even at children. Many civilian eyewitnesses affirmed that the streets of their neighborhoods were full of dead civilians, killed on their way to take refuge in the nearest mosques, following US appeals to do so. M.A. states that his father was wounded by a bullet that penetrated his nick and his mother was killed by snipers as they were on their way to the mosque. He states that he dragged his wounded father to the "Al-Hadra Al- Mohammadiya" mosque, were they were arrested but released a few days later. He does not know what has become of his mother's body.

10. Survivors of the battle assure that US Forces killed the wounded resistance fighters in the sport field of "Sumud" Club. This explains the refusal of the US Forces to see or transport the bodies of the mass graves in "Sajar" and those bodies left in the heaps of rubble.

11. Eyewitnesses confirm that 4 persons of the civilians seeking refuge at the "Al-Hadra Al-Mohammadiya" mosque, were led to a near wall, with their hands tied and their eyes covered, and were then executed there by US and Iraqi Forces, on the grounds of suspecting them to be fighters.

12. Despite the fact that more than 30,000 houses and buildings were destroyed in the battle, the US Forces continued to destroy empty houses before their inhabitants could return. US Forces destroyed in one day 20 houses in the "Shurta" neighborhood. These houses connected 2 schools, which were taken as military bases. The inhabitants of these houses confirm that they had seen their houses in good conditions only a few days before. The reason for the demolition was to secure clear vision on the surrounding areas.

13. The crimes committed against humanity in the city of Fallujah are still ongoing. The city has been turned into a big prison; its 350,000 citizens are not allowed to neither leave nor enter without undergoing abusive and despotic procedures, standing in contrast to the basic rules of Human Rights. Living conditions are extremely hard in many aspects of public life, in addition to transgressions by US soldiers, thereby increasing the suffering of the citizens of Fallujah.

14. The brutality of the crimes is most obvious in the case of the killing of injured and unarmed civilians in a mosque on the hands of a US soldier. Although there were many witnesses to this incident, the military court in which this case was later handled declared that the accused did not violate the security procedures, and was therefore found not guilty of any charge.

- Fourth crime:

At the beginning of July 2005, the US forces arrested 5 persons in the "Al-Zeidan" area in the outskirts of West Baghdad, accusing them of terrorism. The accused were:

1) Yaseen Mar'eed Hamad Al-Zawba'i

2) Khaled Mar'eed Hamad Al-Zawba'i

3) Hameed Salem Ahmad Muhawesh Al-Zawba'i

4) Ahmad Salam Masfouf Al-Zawba'i

5) Munther Ata'alla Alali Al-Zawba'i

Two days after their detention, they were tied to explosives, and their bodies were torn into pieces, making their remains unrecognizable. The victims' relatives and the Department of Culture and Information of the

Committee of Moslem Scientists stated on the 5th of July 2005, that the identification of the bodies could only be done based on the remains of their clothing and by distinguishable personal body marks.

- Fifth crime:

In the afternoon of the 10th of July 2005, US military forces fired randomly at a civilian car in the "Alamiriya" area of Baghdad killing a citizen (Abbas Salem Abbas Al-Zawba'i) and injuring two other persons who were with him in the car. The injured were taken to "Al-Nour" Hospital in "Shu'la" City in Baghdad. When their relatives arrived to see after them, they were surprised that everyone asking about them was being arrested by members of a militant force pertaining to the Ministry of Interior called "Al-

Saqer" (hawk). 12 Persons of the same family were arrested, beaten, and tortured with electro-shocks and acids, as the marks on their bodies show. At last, they were kept in a closed container for 14 hours, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius. 11 Persons died as a consequence of the torture, 1 person survived to be the witness of this crime. The names of the victims are as follows:

1) Taha Hussein Madloul Al-Zawba'i

2) Sabah Zaki Ali Al-Zawba'i

3) Hussein Ali Talab Al-Zawba'i

4) Riyad Mohammad Ahamd Al-Zawba'i

5) Dia' Mohammad Ahmad Al-Zawba'i

6) Mushtaq Turki Saleh Al-Zawba'i

7) Jalal Ahmad Ali Al-Zawba'i

8) Abbas Salem Abbas Al-Zawba'i

9) Nafe' Salem Abbas Al-Zawba'i

10) Aziz Ali Morouj Al-Zawba'i

11) Shiya' Isma'eel Muhanna Al-Zawba'i

12) Omar Aneed Khudeir Al-Zawba'i

13) Wa'el Abbas Salem Al-Zawba'i

2. Assassinations



The assassinations of Iraqi scientists are probably the most distinctive of all assassinations, with clear evidence at hand. The president of the Department for Research and Development at the Iraqi Ministry for Higher Education, Mr. Osama Abed Al-Majeed, accused Mossad to stand behind the ongoing campaign targeting Iraqi scientists. He stated that most of the 15500 Iraqi researchers, scientists, teachers and professors were dismissed from their offices based on a Law aiming at out rooting Baathists, thereby forcing them to emigrate.

Iraqi police sources revealed that till the end of March 2004 more than 1000 Iraqi scientists were shot. A report, which was previously published by the U.S. State Department, confirmed the killing of 350 scientists specialized in nuclear sciences, and 200 professors. The Network for Human Rights and Democracy in Iraq, had previously accused the Israeli Secret Services of the assassination of tens of Iraqi Scientists.

3. Violation of Children's Rights



• Children are suffering negative psychological effects since the beginning of occupation and military operations. Children suffer from fear and exhibit aggressive behaviour. A further indicator of their suffering is their worsening performance at school.



• Some educational areas are still suffering from the violation of their educational rights. In Fallujah, 6 schools are still being used as headquarters for the Iraqi National Guard and the U.S. Army, despite a decree issued by the Council of Ministers, stressing the importance of clearing the schools, so that students could return. Although the fighting has ended more than 10 months ago, the school children, whose schools were destroyed in the September and October battles, are taking classes in tents under miserable health conditions. Naturally, school children should be in their school buildings, and the military should be operating from tents. Furthermore, the building of the government department for education in Fallujah is used by the Iraqi and U.S. Armies, while the department for education has to use a school building as temporary offices.



• In the past two months, the military operations in the areas of west Iraq, destroyed and damaged many schools in cities such as Al-Qa'em, Haditha, Al-Karableh, Heet, and Al-Ramadi, thereby hindering students from continuing the recent school year. Furthermore, the Faculty of Agriculture – Anbar University, was occupied by the U.S. Army, thereby increasing the difficulties for students and university staff in completing their academic aims, such as forcing the classes to take place in an inadequate site within the university.



• Despite the appeal by departments of education to facilitate the attendance of schools and universities for students, the procedures to enter cities such as Falluja and other cities west of the Euphrates, which have been under siege for a long time, were deliberately hardened, thus negatively effecting the attendance of schools and universities and the possibilities to take examinations.



• There are cases of children being in prisons along with their parents, such as the case of two children 4 and 3 years old, who are together with their mother in the women's prison in Babel.



• As some released prisoners confirm, there are cases where children are tortured in front of their parents so as to get to confessions from the latter, as has happened in the prison of Abu Ghraib.



• The Director of the Department of Cancerous Diseases in the Ministry of Health has asserted that the number of children infected with hepatitis has exceeded 1750 cases. The reasons for this rising number of infected children are the environmental pollution as a consequence of war, the insufficient number of specialized hospitals, and the scarcity of necessary medication.