Posted on 03/25/2003 5:38:42 PM PST by Fzob
Below are snippet of this report
http://staging.hrw.org/reports/1995/IRAQ955.htm
I can now understand why the Iraqi citizen is quite reluctant to welcome Americans until they are absolutely sure Saddem and his Ba'ath party thugs are gone.
Amputation, Branding and the Death Penalty
SUMMARY
Beginning in June 1994, the government of Iraq issued at least nine decrees that establish severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion. These new decrees greatly impinge on individual human rights and constitute violations of several international human rights conventions and standards.
The government of Iraq attempts to deflect international criticism of this cruelty by maintaining that the decrees were enacted to combat rising crime which, it says, is due to the poverty and desperation brought on by international economic sanctions. By implying that if sanctions are lifted and the situation improves the decrees could be repealed, Iraq appears to use these abuses as leverage for the lifting of sanctions. While arguing that the decrees serve as a deterrent to crime, the government has offered no information that they are serving this purpose.
The government of Iraq also maintains that the decrees are based on Sharia, Islamic law. Sharia, however, is subject to various interpretations, and the Iraqi government's interpretation reflects its political agenda. The repressive political climate within Iraq prevents discussion by Iraqis about other interpretations. Moreover, Muslims outside Iraq hold views regarding the use of amputation under Islamic law that conflict with Iraq's interpretation.
The penalty of amputation is now applied to theft, forgery, currency speculation, military desertion and draft-dodging. Reports from Iraqi news media indicate that the sentence of amputation has been carried out on several individuals convicted of theft. One victim was displayed on Iraqi government television recuperating in the hospital after his hand had been cut off. For deserters and draft-dodgers the ear is amputated.
Under criticism from veterans' groups complaining that amputees convicted of criminal offenses would be confused with the large number of Iraqi veterans who lost limbs during military service, the government began branding the foreheads of amputation victims to distinguish them from war casualties. Often without anesthesia, the figure of a cross is burned into the victim's forehead. Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, told Human Rights Watch/Middle East that several hundred amputations and brandings had been carried out as of November 1994. There have been several reports that doctors have been imprisoned and even executed for refusing to perform punitive amputations and brandings. The government defends amputations as an improvement over its former policy of execution for military deserters. Human Rights Watch/Middle East challenges the suggestion that the only options are death or mutilation.
An individual found guilty of armed robbery or committing theft as a member of the military or as a state employee may be executed. Persons convicted of smuggling antiquities or organizing prostitution may also be sentenced to death. Any person who deserts military service three times may be executed. Since the most recent United Nations report about human rights in Iraq, in February 1995, the Iraqi government has sentenced to death at least a dozen persons in two separate proceedings. The Iraqi government tried these persons before specialized courts which tend to afford few due process guarantees, including a judiciary independent of influences by the government.
These penalties violate international human rights law in many respects. First, they are cruel and inhuman punishments, prohibited under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iraq is a party. In addition, these punishments have been applied retroactively. Finally, the great expansion of offenses covered by the death penalty also eviscerates the spirit and principle of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Cases
Reliable information about the human rights situation in Iraq is extremely difficult to obtain, since the government does not allow national human rights groups to operate in Iraq and refuses to permit access to outside human rights monitors. While these restrictions have hampered the collection of detailed information, the existence of the decrees and their implementation have never been disputed. The Government of Iraq has not only published the decrees and acknowledged that these punishments are occurring, it has publicized them in the state-controlled media in an apparent attempt to instill fear and send warnings. An article in the state-run newspaper Al-Thawrah reported that two soldiers' ears were cut off and their foreheads branded for desertion in early September.[25] On September 7, 1994, the state-run newspaper Al-Jumhuriyah reported that a man's hand was amputated in the Babil Governorate after he was convicted of robbing a house.[26]
In November 1994, Ambassador Hamdoon told Human Rights Watch/Middle East that several hundred persons had been subjected to amputations and brandings. He also stated that the Iraqi government maintains that amputating ears and branding foreheads of deserters is more humane than the previous policy of executing them.[27]
Listed below are five cases from a variety of different sources illustrating Iraq's use of amputation.
C In June 1994, Aziz Sa'd Dahash and Nadir Ali Fulayyih were convicted of stealing carpets from the Bahriz al-Kabir mosque northeast of Baghdad on January 20, 1994 and sentenced by the criminal court in Diyala to have their hands amputated.[28] According to Amnesty International, the amputations were carried out in July.[29]
C Hassan Abdul Allah Hassan discussed the details surrounding his ear amputation in an interview with the Iraqi Broadcast Corporation. According to Hassan, the Iraqi authorities imprisoned him and other deserters in a cramped hall that was too small to hold all of them. As they waited for the procedure, some persons went insane, others committed suicide. Hassan received anesthesia before a doctor performed the ear amputation. Afterwards, his wound began to bleed profusely, but the doctor did not give him any medicine to control or stop the bleeding. When all the amputations had been performed the victims were returned to prison. During the interview, Mr. Hassan removed his hat to show that the fleshy top portion of the ear had been cut in a forty-five- degree angle.[30]
C A physician who worked in a Baghdad military hospital before fleeing to Iraqi Kurdistan in October 1994, estimated that 1,700 amputations had been performed for desertion between August and mid-September 1994.[31] This doctor reported that the procedures were often performed without anesthesia and that the risk of infection was very high because of the poor hygenic conditions.[32]
C An Iraqi soldier arrested with five others and taken from Kirkuk to Mosul told the Iraqi National Congress the group spent five days in a prison where they were beaten and tortured before being taken to a hospital where he was tied to the bed and given anesthesia before the doctors amputated his ear. According to this man, the amount of anesthesia an individual receives varies inversely to the amount of trouble that the person caused the government. Therefore, a person who escaped more often and remained absent for longer periods received less anesthesia.[33]
C On October 8, 1994, a number of persons in Baghdad had their ears amputated for desertion, including Ali Hussein Lefta Ashoov, Tariq Audah, and Mohammed Hassaballah.[34]
Although it is difficult to estimate the total number of persons who have suffered, Iraq has implemented these penalties throughout the country. Agence France Presse reported in September 1994 that at least 780 soldiers allegedly had their earlobes amputated and their foreheads branded as a punishment for desertion and draft-dodging.[35] On August 24, 1994, Mohammad Hassan and Salam al-Elebawi were among several victims whose ears were amputated in the southern city of Amarah.[36] On August 26, 1994, twelve individuals suffered amputation of their ears at the Adnan Kheirallah Hospital in Baghdad.[37]
The government maintains that the economic sanctions have forced Iraq to ration medical supplies and require victims to pay for anesthesia, when it is available, before amputating their limbs. A number of people have died following amputations.
C Max Van der Stoel, special rapporteur on Iraq for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, reported that in southern Iraq two men, "Hassan Ali Kadhim and Khaz'al Abid Mansour, both of the city of Nasiriya, died after 10 days of head and chest inflammation that followed the amputation of their ears," and a man from the northern city of Mosul died from severe blood loss after the amputation.[38]
C In October, British Member of Parliament Emma Nicholson returned from Iraq's southern marsh region and reported that at least one person bled to death immediately as a result of an ear amputation, because he suffered from hemophilia.[39] Other persons developed infections after the procedure and became ill or died, due in part to lack of medication.[40]
In addition to these fatalities, some victims committed suicide after suffering amputations. One man allegedly committed suicide outside the hospital in Mosul after his ear was amputated. A group of ten soldiers incarcerated at Mansoryat al-Jabal prison in Diyala Governorate reportedly committed suicide after their ears were amputated and foreheads branded. Their wounds had become infected, and they could not obtain medical care.[41]
Amputations and branding, by requiring the participation of a physician, have created a serious ethical dilemma for Iraq's medical community. Reports indicate that many Iraqi doctors refuse to perform amputations in spite of government warnings to comply. The government threatened to imprison doctors who planned to protest against the use of amputation and branding. Doctors in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Basra, and elsewhere have been arrested for refusing to perform the amputations.[42]
C "Two well-known Baghdad doctors, Abbas Qalander and Hahreen Yousif [of the Baghdad Health Department], disobeyed the order and were detained."[43]
C In December 1994, local authorities arrested Dr. Rabih Abdul Haddi, Dr. Yahya Rejab al- Khafaji and Dr. Issam from the southern town of al-Nasiriyah, as well as sixty medical students from Basra, for their stance against amputation.[44]
C Amnesty International reports that nine doctors were arrested after they refused to perform amputations.[45]
C In September 1994 in Baghdad, Dr. Amjad al-Timimy and Dr. Hatim Abdul Waheed of al-Kadimia Hospital and Dr. Sami Hashim al-Jawmaily of Ali Hospital were arrested for performing cosmetic surgery on amputation victims.[46]
A journalist reporting from northern Iraq stated that some doctors had even been executed for refusing to perform amputations.[47] Other reports indicate that a doctor in Nasiriyah at Saddam Hospital and the director of al-Basra Military Hospital were executed for refusing to perform the procedures.[48]
Protest has spread beyond doctors, however. According to the The Times, riots broke out in the southern city of Amarah on September 12, 1994 when a crowd gathered to protest the new punishments. An angry mob attacked several Ba'ath Party officials and cut off their ears.[49]
Special Rapporteur Van der Stoel reported that several hundred persons had been punished retroactively under the decrees for desertion and draft-dodging.[55] The Iraqi government enacted Decree Number 115 establishing ear amputations for desertion on August 25, 1994. On the very next day at Adnan Kheirallah Hospital, twelve persons had their ears amputated, although their act of desertion occurred before the enactment of the penalty.
BRANDING
Branding was added to the new decrees as an accompanying punishment with the purpose of marking the victims as convicted criminals.[60]
Cases
Human Rights Watch/Middle East believes large numbers of people have suffered brandings. Iraqi authorities and state-run media have been just as candid about using branding as a method of punishment as they have been regarding amputation.
C Ali Ubaid Abed Ali from Diyala Governorate had his right hand amputated and his forehead branded for stealing a television and money.[65] An Iraqi television broadcast showed pictures of him under anesthesia in the hospital just after the operations. The images showed his branded forhead and his arm in a bandage.[66] The newscaster commenting on Mr. Ali's condition said "his case should be 'a lesson to all who might think of violating the rights of others.'"[67]
C Mussa Inad, an Iraqi soldier, suffered a branding on his forehead for desertion. After escaping to Kuwait, he reported that "Iraqi intelligence officers tortured him by tearing a hole in his ear."[68]
C A man convicted of stealing from a factory and another convicted separately for auto theft were sentenced to have their hands amputated and their foreheads branded. Amnesty International stated it had unconfirmed reports that this sentence was carried out.[69]
DEATH PENALTY
The Decrees
In Decree Number 59, referred to above, the RCC ruled, "The penalty shall be execution instead of amputation if the robbery crime is committed by a person carrying a visible or a hidden weapon or if the crime results in the death of a person."[70] On August 25, 1994, the RCC issued Decree Number 114, which amended this clause to extend the death penalty not just to those offenses committed while carrying weapons, but to any theft perpetrated by an individual "affiliated with the Armed Forces, the Security Forces, or a state employee."[71] The death penalty, however, can be commuted to life in prison if the court finds that the circumstances warrant such mercy.
In July 1994, the RCC issued decrees, including some to be enforced with the death penalty, aimed at curbing corruption among government officials. Decree Number 91 established heightened penalties for any "state worker or Armed Forces member using his post to deliberately commit or take part in committing a crime." Thus, for crimes which an ordinary civilian would receive fifteen years' imprisonment, a person in these categories would receive life imprisonment. The decree, however, calls for the death penalty be administered "if the perpetrator is an employee of the Internal Security Forces or the Special Security Organ."[72]
The new laws also have targeted smugglers of Iraqi antiquities. In July, Iraqi radio reported that the RCC decreed, "The punishment shall be ... life imprisonment or the death penalty against he who is actually convicted of smuggling archaeological findings [sic] that contribute to seriously affecting the national economy."[73] This decree was issued immediately prior to the Iraqi government condemnation of the auction sale of an Assyrian antiquity.[74] Human Rights Watch/Middle East does not know whether anyone has been sentenced under this decree.
On August 27, 1994, the RCC issued Decree Number 118, which established the death penalty for organizing prostitution. "Anyone found organizing a group for the purposes of solicitation ... is punishable by execution."[75] Human Rights Watch/Middle East does not know whether anyone has been sentenced under this decree.
Under Decree Number 115, persons convicted three times of deserting or providing assistance to deserters will be executed.[76]
The government-controlled newspaper Al-Jumhuriyah announced that a "specialised court of the ministry of interior has sentenced criminals Hussein Jassim, Ali Fakhri and Qassim Jawad to death by hanging" for car theft.[77]
Al-Jumhuriyah reported that eight personsCTijani Hussein, Haydar Falaki, Hamad al-Sheikh, Ahmad Mohammed, Sharif Aziz, Hassan Mahmoud, Suad Abdullah and Azad BakrCwere sentenced to death by a ministry of interior specialized court for stealing two trucks, "raising to 13 the number of criminals sentenced to die in less than one month."[78]
Special Rapporteur Van der Stoel reported that military doctors who refused to perform amputations and brandings on draft-dodgers and deserters were subject to possible imprisonment and execution.[79]
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