And AmeriKa and its mouthpiece media called it liberation.
"Raids, arrests of Sunnis increase in Iraq; Hundreds of men detained; some have disappeared" by Ernesto Londono, Washington Post / December 12, 2010
Four-year-old Nour Ibrahim saw Iraqi security forces detain her father earlier this years in Garma. The family spent several months trying to locate him. (Ernesto Londono/The Washington Post)
BAGHDAD — The soldiers yanked Arkan Subhi Ahmed al-Habshi out of bed shortly before dawn, screaming and striking him with their guns, a scene that has become routine in Sunni districts of Baghdad.
His family’s futile attempts to navigate the criminal justice system into which he disappeared after his detention in July fit a pattern that has left Sunnis across the country feeling bereft and indignant.
“There is no evidence against him,’’ said his wife, Besma Ali, 22. “This government wants to take revenge on the people.’’
Habshi is among the countless Sunni men who are ensnarled in Iraq’s backlogged and corruption-plagued court system. In a country that is slowly coming to terms with a vicious sectarian war, their treatment has become among the most combustible flash points.
As the US military’s oversight of Iraq’s increasingly powerful security forces declines, Sunni leaders charge that the Shi’ite-dominated government is using them to marginalize the once-empowered minority.
Segments of the security forces no longer carry out sectarian cleansing, as they did at the war’s peak in 2007. But in the wake of high-profile attacks across the city in recent months, hundreds of Sunni men have been taken into custody in mass raids, often with no warrants.
Sunni leaders and relatives of imprisoned men said some have been released bearing signs of torture and have told harrowing tales of violent interrogations in police stations.
Others, like Habshi, have vanished inside the Byzantine Iraqi criminal justice system, leaving relatives vulnerable to a cottage industry of corrupt people who present themselves as court system interlocutors. They take bribes for a range of services that include disclosing the location of individual inmates, expediting cases, and arranging phone calls.
Although Sunnis account for the vast majority of inmates, Kurds and Shi’ites reportedly have also been subjected to abuse while in custody. The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq routinely detains people without charges, and human rights organizations have accused its security forces of roughing up inmates. Members of Shi’ite militias have also alleged prison abuse, but their political allies have often been successful in negotiating their release.
The reappointment of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite, this month has raised concerns among Sunnis that abuses will continue unchecked because Sunni leaders were unable to get firm promises about reforms in detainee treatment as part of the government formation deal.
Notice this all coming out after Maliki cut the deal with Sadr?
Also see: Occupation Iraq: Slow Torture on a Saturday
Occupation Iraq: Moving In on Maliki
Being an AmeriKan I have no standing to criticize torture by anyone else; however, what is being done by my government is without my consent and never has been!
“The Sunnis will soon be in the same position as the Palestinians,’’ said Habshi’s cousin Ibrahim Ahmed Rababshi, 42. “We will be pushed out, and we eventually won’t have a single Sunni mosque left.’’
A bit hyperbolic, especially since mosques (and churches) have stood for centuries -- until we got there!
Habshi was taken into custody hours after a coordinated attack on an army checkpoint in the Sunni district of Adamiyah on July 29. A team of gunmen opened fire on soldiers, set the bodies of the slain on fire, and raised the black and green flag of Al Qaeda in Iraq next to the smoldering corpses. As other soldiers and police officers arrived at the scene, remotely detonated bombs killed some of the first responders.
Waving it in your f***ing face!
Related: Occupation Iraq: The Boys Are Back in Town
Yeah, "Al-CIA-Duh" is still around.
Shortly after 3 a.m. the following day, throngs of uniformed and plainclothes security officers stormed into nearby houses and took dozens of men into custody.
Guess who trained 'em.
Habshi, who was taken along with a brother, was nearly naked when the two were roused out of bed. As his wife and two daughters, an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old, wailed, officers struck the men, relatives said.
“I wish the Americans had been with them,’’ said his mother, Nauja Razeq al-Hamaz, 54, speaking barely above a whimper. “They wouldn’t have been so brutal and inhumane.’’
Over the next couple of days, Iraqi security forces kept Adamiyah on lockdown, preventing residents from leaving and blocking trucks of food from coming in. At least 300 men were detained, religious leaders and lawyers in Adamiyah said.
“They didn’t make a distinction between the old and the young,’’ defense lawyer Amar Adami said. “We don’t have any idea where they were taken. Even during Saddam’s time, when they took a prisoner, they told his family where they were taking him.’’
Prominent Sunni politicians visited Adamiyah days after the attack and promised to seek the release of innocent people. A few dozen were freed within weeks of the raid, including Habshi’s brother, who told relatives he had been interrogated while getting electrical shocks.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (or worse)!!
But there was no news about Habshi as summer turned into fall. Unable to continue paying the family’s $400 monthly rent, Ali, his wife, sold the family’s furniture and moved in with her parents.
Acquaintances familiar with the family’s plight offered to put Ali in touch with a woman who supposedly specialized in cases of missing detainees. Ali didn’t think twice about selling all the gold jewelry she got for her wedding.
“People came over and said they could offer information for $800,’’ she said. “They said they could get it from the Green Zone,’’ the secure sector of Baghdad that is the center of the government.
Ali said she paid $1,000, all the money she had, “but until now, nothing.’’
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