-
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Dozens of men and women with incarcerated family members gathered in front of the Iraqi parliament building on Thursday, requesting a general amnesty for their loved ones, whom they claim have been imprisoned unlawfully.
Crying mothers, lamenting wives, and pleading fathers who have sought freedom for their loved ones for years to no avail have now carried their voices and their demands to the protests staged by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters, imploring the leader of the Sadrist Movement for granting their demands.
The validity of their claims remains uncertain, as many of them refuse to name their imprisoned family members or reveal the reason for their arrest.
Among the many tents of Sadrist supporters around the parliament building representing different tribes or groups, the Free Iraqis tent, representing prisoners’ families, can be found.
Ghazi Auda, 50, represents the tent that has been a part of the Sadrist sit-in for the last 12 days. He claims his son has been wrongfully detained for years, and decries the poor living conditions of the prisons in the country.
“What are these sentences? There are rehabilitation prisons that produce respectful people. But here, it changes the person for the worst. Drugs, they sell in the prisons. Crystal meth, they sell in the prisons. The peak of corruption is in the prisons,” Auda told Rudaw English on Thursday.
Sadrist supporters expanded their protests towards the gates of the Supreme Judicial Council building on Tuesday, after a request from Sadr to dissolve the current parliament was rejected by the judiciary, saying the body lacks the authority to interfere in legislative or executive matters.
Auda and the rest of the families demanded the “cleansing” of the Supreme Judicial Council from corruption, including the removal of Faiq Zidan, President of the Council, from his position.
“We are the poor and the oppressed. From top to bottom, our sons had no relations [to the crimes]. What was his fault? What did we do?” cried Iman Khamis, claiming that her only son, who has been imprisoned for the last 14 years, is innocent.
Iraq has often been criticized for poor prison conditions and treatment of detainees and suspects.
Over 50 thousand prisoners are detained in facilities across Iraq, according to Ahmad Luaibi, spokesperson for the justice ministry.
In an August 2021 report, the United Nations said that a total of 1,406 complaints of “torture or ill-treatment in places of detention” were reported by the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council, of which only 18 were closed.
Two men died in a Basra prison in August 2021, with the result of the investigations suggesting the prisoners were subjected to “violation” and “torture” before they passed.
At least 17 people were executed across Iraq in 2021, according to Amnesty International. The same watchdog reported over 100 executions in 2019.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment