"We are not surprised by the Abu Ghraib pictures..."
The delegation's request to visit Abu Ghraib was turned down by the occupation forces, but Shalabi painted a very grim picture of the human rights situation based on interviews with former prisoners and relatives of imprisoned or killed Iraqis. He contested the accuracy of the figures released by the occupation forces. "The prison easily has 40,000 to 50,000 prisoners that are crammed in subhuman conditions in four wards. This figure includes some 10,000 prisoners who are held in an open air field inside the prison without shelter. Based on the testimonies of former prisoners, only one out of the four wards is for criminal prisoners while the other three are for those held for security purposes," he said.
"Security prisoners should have prisoner of war status under the Geneva Convention," Shalabi explained. "But of course this is not happening and this constitutes only part of a larger scale of IHL breaches committed by the occupation forces."
According to IHL, state parties to the Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute who violate international law should be persecuted up to the highest chain of command, explained Shalabi. "This translates to persecuting Bush and Blair," he said with a cynical chuckle, "which of course is not realistic."
The situation in the Krober detention camp in Baghdad airport which is reserved for high-ranking officials of the former Iraqi regime is equally bad, he said.
Amira Howeidy/Al-Ahram May.6-12.04
