Survey of violations: 

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. 

- Second crime:

On the night from the 4th to the 5th of March 2005, when a group of farmers came to sell their goods in the area of "Oulwa Jameela", a police car and a civilian car (Opel) stopped and arrested these farmers, as eyewitnesses from "Oulwa" affirm. These farmers were:

1) Nayef Majoul Saleh

2) Taha Abbas Salman

3) Lu'ay Mahmoud Majoul

4) Abdallah Manhmoud Saleh

5) Jabbar Matlek Saleh

6) Saleh Mohammad Saleh

7) Sabah Kareem Sa'eed

8) Qasem Mohammad Sa'eed

9) Ziyad Majoul Sa'eed

10) Qasem Ne'mah Saleh

11) Mohammad Saleem Jameel

12) Wahhab Mahmoud Salman

13) Mohammad Wahhab Mahmoud

14) Ammar Kareem Najem

After 2 days of this incident, the above mentioned were found dead, their bodies disfigured, full of bullets, their skulls smashed. They were found in a garbage dump in the areas of "Kisra" and "Atash", in the outskirts of Baghdad. Their relatives state, that 2 of the above mentioned survived and were brought to a hospital, where their pursuers executed them at the hospital's entrance.  

- Third crime:

On the 14th of May 2005, a police force burst into houses of the "Iskan" area in Baghdad and arrested the following citizens:

1) Salah Hassan Moussa

2) Yahya Hassan Moussa

3) Khaled Al-Azzawi

4) Salah Ibrahim Nuriman Mahmoud

5) Khudeir Khamees (son of the neighborhood's mosque muezzin)

6) Nusseir Sameer

7) Leith Al-Azzawi

8) Ali Hussein

9) Mohammad Hameed Rasheed

This police force took possession of all the families' belongings, money, jewelry, and personal weapons. Afterwards, the arrested were tortured, killed and their bodies were left, covered with stones and sand, in a deserted area outside Baghdad ("Al-Kayyara.").

- 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.

Appendix 1 contains a list of the names of some of the assassinated university professors.

Further, a series of assassinations is targeting high ranking officers and military physicians of the former Iraqi Army because of their participation in the Iraqi-Iranian war. This indicates the involvement of the Iranian Secret Services in assassinations carried out by some militias pertaining to political parties in Iran. The retired Rear Admiral, Isma'eel Sa'eed, was assassinated and with him his friend and neighbour, the lawyer Mohammad Ali Ashour, who was standing next to him at the time of the assassination.

Another example is the assassination of the former military officer Haider Kathem Al-Mohammadawi in his house in the "Seidiyeh" neighbourhood in Baghdad. A group of men, wearing police uniforms, surrounded the area with their cars and asked permission to go up on the roof of the victim's house, with the false pretence to survey a group of armed men in the neighbourhood. The victim accompanied them and was shot on the roof; his wife hearing the gun fire, hurried up to the roof where she found her dead husband.

The retired Brigadier General, Munther Al-Bayyati, who worked as a physician in the Al-Rasheed Military Hospital was assassinated by gun fire, released from 2 approaching white cars. Where as the Brigadier General, Ibrahim Al-Sayel, was kidnapped by an official security unit, with the charge of having participated in the Iraqi-Iranian war, as his family members confirm.

On the 29th of June 2005, the former Major General (former leader of group 34) of the Iraqi Army, Abdel-Kareem Jasem Al-Aqabi, was arrested by persons, who had arrived in 3 police cars, wearing police uniforms. Two days after this incident his family received a phone call and a ransom of 25,000 US$ was demanded. Although the ransom was paid, the body of the kidnapped former Major General was found by the police 10 days later in the streets of Baghdad.

The great number of detentions, kidnappings and murdering, which are the consequence of the political conflicts and disputes, must be condemned and convicted, and independent investigations must be conducted so as to identify the responsible parties. Otherwise, these criminal acts will threaten the political process and peace in Iraq and will lead to the creation of gangs and of dictatorial systems, deploying armed militias to solve their disputes.

1) Two members of the Drafting Committee for the Constitution (Dr. Mujbil Al-Sheikh Issa and Dr. Damen Jasem) and their driver (Aziz Alawi) were killed. The two members were representatives of the Sunnite population, and were included in the Drafting Committee on Monday 18th July 2004. They were murdered only a few days after receiving threats by sectarian political parties, competing for privileges in the Iraqi Constitution. The killings took place near an Iraqi police check point and another checkpoint of commando militias; neither party interfered to prevent the killing. The two members were killed in "Al-Karadeh" area, which is known to be a central area for the headquarters of influential parties in the Iraqi government. The government condemned the incident and expressed its deep sorrow but did not comply to the demands of the political parties to which the victims pertained. They demanded that an independent international investigation should be conducted and that the actual Minister of the Interior (Bayan Soulagh) should resign, since he, together with the militias of the opposition parties, was made responsible for the killings.

2) On the 14th of June 2005, Mr., Abed Al-Salam Ilwan Al-Ghanem, member of the National Democratic Party in Iraq was kidnapped in the area of "Abu Al-Khuseib" in Basra. His body was found 3 days later by the police in the "Al-Hartha" area and was then taken to Al-Faiha Hospital.

3) The killing of Shiekh Hasan Al Nuaimi of the Muslim Scholars Assembly in front of Al Shahid Yousif Mosque in Al Shaab city after arresting him by the Iraqi forces in 15/5/2005, after finding his body with another 14 dead bodies, killed and disfigured in a garbage in al shaab area, and after two days from arresting him, where the Muslim scholars assembly have accused the Bader Militia for committing this crime after the appearance of an internal letter for these militia ordering one of its branches to monitor a group of persons where it was found out that the name of Shiakh Hasan Al Nuaimi was among these names.

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.

4. The Health Situation

* The greatest violation in this field was the prohibition of rescue and medical teams, including the rescue teams of the Ministry of Health and those of international organisations, to enter areas of military conflicts where a great number of civilians were still living. The pretence for the prohibition was the critical security situation. Therefore, these teams were hindered from fulfilling their humanitarian assistance needed by the civilians in areas of fighting between the U.S. Army and Iraqi fighters. This by itself is a crime against humanity and a crime of war.

* The occupation of Fallujah Hospital, on 17th of November 2004, during the November battle is the most prominent example for such criminal acts. Not only were the hospital staff and all patients arrested, but also was the internal central clinic of the hospital bombed, killing patients and two doctors. The Al-Ahli hospital (Khaled Al-Janabi Hospital) was first plundered and then destroyed. Furthermore, some hospitals in the cities of Hadithah, Al-Qa'em and Al-Ramadi were occupied to serve as military bases for the U.S. and Iraqi Armies, without providing alternative health care possibilities to the people of those cities.

* The Office of National Drug Control reported an increase in narcotraffic; Baghdad and Karbala are the cities with the highest drug circulation. Previously, Iraq was considered to be only a corridor of drug traffic, but is now considered to be a consuming country with 2 million addicts, among them 780,000 school and university students.

* In the time period between 2004 and July 2005, the cases of liver cancer have increased causing 269 deaths, according to the report of a hospital specialized in diseases of the digestive system and liver diseases. These report further states that since the year 2003 more than 10,000 citizens are suffering from liver cancer. The report relates the increasing number of these cases to the pollution of drinking water in most of the areas in Baghdad and in other governorates.

* On the 19th of July 2005, more than 30 doctors in Yarmouk Hospital went on strike, demanding that they should be able to treat the patients freely, without the continuous threat by Iraqi soldiers. The strike caused more than 100 patients to remain without any medical treatment on that day. Iraqi soldiers had burst into the hospital's women ward, carrying out an inspection of the female patients. A young doctor present, showed dissatisfaction, which then caused him to be maltreated and threatened by the soldiers. The soldiers punched him in the stomach with their guns and one of them then prepared his gun, still directed at the doctor's stomach, to trigger. The patients' family members intervened, pulling the doctor away. Nevertheless, 4 soldiers followed him pointing their weapons to his head, ordering him to beg for his life. It was only then, as the doctor was on his knees begging for his life, that the soldiers left.

* On the 26th of July 2005, members of the National Guard destroyed the Intensive Care Unit at the Medical City and attacked the medical staff, after one of their colleagues had died in spite of the medical attention he had received. The doctors went on strike, protesting against the violation of their right, against the insults they have been subjected to and against the destruction of the hospitals properties and facilities, due to which other patients are now deprived of intensive medical care.

* In sequence of the U.S. military attacks on the city of "Heet", and the besiege of the city for more than 10 days, the General Director of Heet Hospital was arrested by the U.S. Army.

* On the 18th of April 2004, the U.S. military forces and the Iraqi police stormed the Yarmouk Hospital. A patient, Abbas Medhat Mahmoud, was dragged out of a surgical operation, with the claim that he belongs to the resistance. This act is a clear violation to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 concerning the treatment of prisoners of war and wounded.

* Establishing a check points near the road of the medical clinic in Al Hoor rajab area near Baghdad's borders, where is caused the closing of the clinic due to the difficulties caused by this check point that prevents doctors and nurses from reaching the clinic. This clinic is for distributing medications and drugs for chronic diseases, and its closure will lead to the death of many patients, specially that those drugs aren't available in pharmacies.

5. Collective Punishment

* The U.S. Army applied the method of collective punishment of civilians, with the pretence that armed groups of fighters live among them. The U.S. Army bombed the city of Fallujah killing more than 700 persons in the month of April, and more than 1200 persons during the November battle. On the

outskirts of the city, in the Al-Sajar area, a mass grave with more than 400 bodies was found, including bodies of children, men and women of all age groups. The rests of other bodies found under the ruins were gathered by the U.S. Army and were then disposed of in the "Al-Maqale'" area, outside of Fallujah. This area is now officially closed, no entrance is permitted. Collective punishment was also conducted on the citizens of the cities of Al-Qa'em and Al-Karabelah, without discrimination between young or old.

Before that, a wedding party at Al-Qa'em was bombed killing more than 41 persons, most of them children and women, in addition to the groom Mohammad Rakad Al-Fahdawi and his brother Ahmad.

* The U.S. Army bombed the village of Al-Bofraj, near Al-Ramadi (west Iraq) with heavy artillery after the U.S. military base there had been attacked by Iraqi fighters. The bombing killed 3 citizens, a woman and a child were injured.

* During a five day siege, the city of Ruwah (West Iraq) was bombed randomly, causing the families to flee.

* During the initial and random bombing of Fallujah in the night from 13^th to 14th October, 34 buildings were damaged. According to medical centers in the city the number of victims could not be identified, due to the fact that the bombing increased and many of the victims were buried beneath the ruins.

* During the military attacks on the city of Haditha, conducted by the U.S. and Iraqi Forces, civilians send out a letter demanding help, since their city was being deemed permissible, their women and children and elderly were being killed, among them Sheikh Ismaeel Al-Rawi as he came out of the mosque (Al-Saif Al-Haditha) after attending the morning prayers. Families were driven out of their homes, which were then turned into military bases.

Further, the citizens were subject to abuse and insults by the members of the National Guard.

6. Women's Rights

* The rape of Iraqi women prisoners in the prisons of Abu Ghoreib and Buka is the most marked violation of women's rights. Many of these women committed suicide after being released because they could not live with the shame and disgrace they and their families were subjected to, and to find relief from the great psychological agony tormenting them. Many Iraqi prisoners asserted that Iraqi Forces locked up men and women together in the same cell, all of them naked, and that the screaming of women while being  harassed and raped was heard.

One Iraqi woman, after being released from Abu Ghoreib, reported that her cell inmate was brought back into the cell and remained unconscious for two days. After regaining conscious, she told that she had been raped by U.S. soldiers more than 17 times. Her psychological state and her health situation gravely deteriorated in the following days, nearly causing her death.

Another woman prisoner in Abu Ghoreib committed suicide after she was raped in front of her husband, as her sister later testified. The prisoner had told her sister, that U.S. soldiers had burst into their home in search for her husband. When they could not find him, they imprisoned her instead. Hearing of the imprisonment of his wife, the husband turned himself in. He was put in a cell and was tied to the metal bars before his wife was brought in front of him. One U.S. soldier was tearing her by the hair, while another tore down her clothes, and a third raped her more than once, while her husband was screaming "Allahu Akbar". After this attack on her, she repeatedly asked her sister to help her commit suicide, since she could not live with this disgrace and would never be able to look her husband in the eyes again. She was arrested in December 2003 and released in May 2004.

A similar case was reported by a prisoner, who had witnessed how a young girl was raped in front of her father, who was tied up to the bars in cell 42 in Abu Ghoreib, so as to get the man to confess.

Another prisoner confirmed, that Iraqi women were shouting to their male inmates to kill them, to free them from the torture they were subjected to. He recognized among these women an acquaintance, a 35 year old woman, mother of 3 children. After she was released, she was killed by her brother to wash away the dishonor of the family.

Dr. Huda Al-Na'imi, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Baghdad, affirmed the feeling of loss and insecurity by family members as to how to deal with the victims of their families. An example to this is the story of a young man, whose sister was released from prison and she was pregnant. Being sure that his sister was a victim, but nevertheless being torn between the compassion and dishonor, he consulted a religious leader on what to do in this situation. The religious leader told him that he should save her life.

* Women family members of prisoners, searching and looking for their relatives (sons, fathers, brothers, husbands) are subjected to sexual harassments. It is reported that these women are being searched in a manner, which is not conform to the values and traditions of the Iraqi people. Further, these women are spending a lot of time looking for their relatives in various prisons, which forces them to stay away from their work places, homes and children.

The scandals of Abu Ghoreib and Buka prisons, which have become public, do not represent more than 10% of the actual crimes that had happened and which are still happening there. Though, the greatest crime of all is - as U.S. American documents and evidence shows - that these violations are being committed based on orders of the highest ranking officers, on head of them General Sanchez, and with the knowledge of the U.S. Minister of Defense.

* Cases of deliberate killings of women, such as the case of an Iraqi woman (wife of Jum'a Al-Dalemi) in "Al-Mahmoudiyah" area, who was murdered on the 24th of January 2005, when Soldiers of the Iraqi National Guard where about to kill her two sons for no obvious reason. The woman threw herself on her sons, so as to protect them, and was therefore killed by the soldiers, who afterwards also killed her two sons (Basem and Dia').

* During the battles of September 2004, 149 women in Fallujah were dishonored and the bodies of dead women were mutilated. Most of the bodies of the victims are buried in a mass grave in "Al-Sajar" area near Fallujah.

Although the U.S. Army admitted that the bodies are in this mass grave, they do not allow the relatives of the victims to transport the bodies to the local cemetery. The reason for this prohibition is that the U.S. Army fears the scandal in the press, when the mass grave is opened and the extent of the committed crimes becomes obvious.

Further, there is another area with a great heap of rubble, formed by the U.S. Army, as a consequence of clearing the city of all evidence of the crimes committed during the battles. In this heap, many bodies of civilians and fighters were found.

* The detention of underage women in prisons together with adult prisoners, and delaying their transfer to courts of justice, despite the danger that threatens these minors by being with adult criminals. Such is the case of two girls, 13 and 16 years of age, who were detained in a cell, together with 11 adult female prisoners in Al-Babel prison.

* The prolongation of detention periods of arrested women, as has happened to the following women in Al-Babel prison:

1) The detained (R. K.), who has been in detention for more than 4 months, together with her daughter (Z.K.) and her two children.

2) (A.A.F.) who has been accused of kidnapping her daughter, and who has been in arrest for more than 7 months now.

3) The accused (F.K.H.) has been in detention for more than 18 months, and her case has still not been submitted to court.

Regardless of the prisoners' assertion, that they are being well treated at the prison, Al-Babel prison lacks the most basic hygienic conditions and is not adequately constructed for the imprisonment of human beings.

:: Article nr. 17727 sent on 12-nov-2005 03:20 ECT