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.

• There are repeated cases, where women are taken hostages by the occupation forces, in order to find and to arrest their male relatives, who are being searched for by the U.S. Forces. In addition, the U.S. Army has lately enacted a Law, permitting the infantry of the naval forces in Al-Mosul to arrest the mothers, sisters and wives of Iraqi fighters, for the duration of the search, so that the suspects will turn themselves in. This information was confirmed by a Colonel of the Iraqi Army, who prefers to stay in anonymous.

These procedures were forbidden by the U.S. Army after complaints by the Ministry of Human Rights in Iraq, but are now in effect again. In one case, 4 girls less than 20 years old were arrested in their house in the "Somer" area.

A letter was left behind, in which the kidnappers threatened the safety of the girls, if their relatives did not turn themselves in. Furthermore, many of former prisoners of Abu Ghoreib assured that the torture of women and children were common practice to scare and force their relatives to reveal information or to confess the participation in military actions against U.S. Forces.

These kinds of procedures, bear the danger of increasing military actions against U.S. Forces, since the Iraqi people is known to be committed to religious and social traditions, and revenge to restore the honor and dignity of the victims families will be taken. All this leads to contra violence, enforcing the circle of violence.

• On the 27th of June 2005, the Council of the Governorate of Meesan, as well as organisations and other authorities declared they were boycotting any cooperation with the British troops because of the inhuman treatment the citizens of the governorate were subjected to. They referred to the case of inhuman treatment of a pregnant woman, which led to miscarriage, the arrest of a number of innocent citizens, and the offense and insult of government employees.

7. Prisoners of War and Prisoners

Despite the fact that the General Secretary of the United Nations and other international organizations have acknowledged the existence of more than 10,000 randomly arrested persons without clear charges, U.S. and Iraqi Forces continue with their arbitrary arrests and prolonged detentions of Iraqi citizens. These arrests continue despite a recently issued decree by the actual Council of Ministers prohibiting any detentions without lawful judgment. Nevertheless, there have been reports on cases, where judges issued verdicts to release a prisoner, but the executive authorities did not comply with this verdict. The disregard of these verdicts is sometimes used as a means to receive bribes by the detained person's family members.

The most outrageous and terrible acts witnessed these days in prisons and detention camps is the inhuman treatment of children. Children are tortured to either make them or their parents confess crimes they did not commit. And although the U.S. Forces have established a council for those who want to appeal against the arrest of their children, this council does not have any practical effect and rather serves to polish the image of the U.S. Forces. In effect, this council does not hinder the U.S. Forces to violate the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The Geneva Conventions also state that citizens may only be arrested for security reasons or to trial them because of penal crimes they have committed, and that they have the right to appeal. The right of detainees to appeal is not granted in Iraq. Penalties of 3 months are extended to become several years.

It has to be mentioned, that the most dangerous violation of the rights of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. detention camps in Iraq, is their transfer into U.S. prison camps outside of Iraq, such as the camp at Guantanamo, prisons on board of U.S. warships located in the Arabic Gulf and in the Pacific Ocean, and to prisons within Kuwaiti territories. The International Red Cross affirmed the presence of 8500 Iraqi prisoners of war in Kuwait.

8. Torture and Violations of Human Rights in Detention Camps and in Prisons

The number of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. prison camps is estimated to exceed 280,000 prisoners of both sexes and all ages. The methods of torture and the exertion of pressure on prisoners to make them confess to crimes they have not committed, such as joining the armed resistance or give false information about people, vary greatly.

• U.S. military medical cadres remove organs and body parts from wounded prisoners before killing them, as well as from prisoners sentenced to death. These body parts are then sold, via a well organized network, in the U.S. Many bodies of the victims killed by U.S. forces were lacking organs. Oddly, the medical reports testified natural causes of death.

• Cases of prisoners infected with phthisis pneumonalis in the prison of Al-Mosul Police Department were reported. The causes of infection are maltreatment and physical torture. Five prisoners, Ra'fat Aziz   Mansour, Marwan and three others were infected. When this became known to the officials, the prisoners were disposed of by transferring them to external prisons on the 11th of July 2005.

The military and security corps are applying methods of torture which are more brutal and bloody than those used by the occupation forces. Nevertheless, formerly used methods of torture are still applied such as:

 Whipping on the back with wires

 Kicking in the lower body parts

 Shackling using iron chains and leaving the tortured hanging from bars or

windows in painful positions for long periods of time

 Burning the bodies using cigarettes

 To struck prisoners with electricity, especially in the genitals

 Solitary confinement into cages, small enough so there is even no possibility

to sit

 Deprivation of sleep

 Signing of testimonies without permission to read these

The former kinds of torture were extended to include drilling holes into the bodies and using acids, such as sulfuric acids, burning parts of the body. During torture, the tortured are promised to be spared further torture, if they confess having committed crimes. These methods were used in Al-Mosul and other parts of Iraq.

• Despite a recently issued decree by the Council of Ministers, presided by its president Dr. Al-Jafari, prohibiting the detention of any person without an order by court, arbitrary and unjustified arrests are still carried out. An example for these arbitrary detentions is the case of two men, arrested by the Wolf Brigade (Al-Theeb) in Al-Mosul. The two men have been in arrest for over five months now, without any clear charges or evidence against them. Confessions were taken from them by means of torture. Currently they are detained at the Police Department of Al-Mosul in Sirdab after having spent 3 months in a prison in Al-Theeb district, and 2 months at the police department in Ninawa.

• The U.S. forces have turned some vital public facilities into head quarters and prisons, as they have done at the Al-Maseeb Electricity Station and at Al-Karkh Water Clarification Station at Al-Taremiyah, thereby hindering these facilities to serve the Iraqi citizens.

• The Iraqi Vice-Minister of Justice, Judge Bosho Ibrahim, declared the initiation of building two huge prisons in Iraq, with a capacity of 7,000 prisoners complying with international standards. The first will be built in Al-Nasseriyah and will be able to take in 4,000 prisoners. The second will be built in the area of Bani Khan in the governorate of Diyali with a capacity for 2,800 prisoners. The construction of a third prison at Rania Military Castle in the governorate of Al-Salmaniyah is planned. These prisons will take in prisoners who are sentenced to life. The plans seem to be an encouraging step towards detaining more Iraqi prisoners in support of the detention campaigns carried out in the name of fighting terrorism? For further information, 200 million U.S. $ have been granted by U.S. sources for the construction of new Iraqi prisons.

The same source affirmed the existence of 3273 imprisoned and detained persons in the prisons of Baghdad, 2140 prisoners in the prisons of the central areas, and 1333 prisoners in the prisons of the southern area. In addition, there are 180 prisoners in the women's prison in Al-Kathemiyah in Baghdad. No information could be obtained on the number of prisoners in the northern areas where, according to U.S. press sources, a great number of prisoners are being held and continuous violations, with the knowledge of the U.S. forces, are taking place.

• In Fallujah, a clergy (A.A.S.) was arrested and tortured for 4 days by security forces, whose president is General Mahdi Al-Gharawi. The arrested was then handed over to U.S. forces, which found him innocent of any charge and thus released him. His testimony and the marks of torture were registered by the representative of the Ministry of Human Rights in the region. This representative asserted that more than 50 persons had been arrested in Fallujah in February, and that most of them had been tortured and had only been released after authorities had received bribes, ranging from 600 to 1200 U.S.$.

• Released prisoners of Buka prison (Basra) testified that U.S. forces killed 4 prisoners in this prison on the 29th of January 2005 and a fifth prisoner on the 3rd of February 2005.

In addition, the health status of the prisoners and arrested persons is very bad, as most of them were put in tents that don’t contain any of the basic health rights that should be available.

All these happenings taking place shows that there are many executions cases have taken place out of the law, and many arbitrary executions without trials are committed. This is shown through the long periods of arresting without doing any trails.

9. Minorities

Some of the minorities, such as the Christian and the Arabic minorities suffer from persecution and the violations of their rights in the City of Karkouk by militias belonging to the two Kurdish parties. Many have fled the city fearing acts of revenge and terror and which are carried out to scare and force them to leave the city in order to gain full control for the Kurds in the city.

On the morning of 17th July 2005, a group of the Iraqi National Guards burned down the headquarters of the Turkman Front in Al-Kafa'at neighborhood in Al-Mosul after arresting 7 of the local guards of the headquarter. The responsible of the headquarters, Mohammad Aljarallah, was not allowed to remove the belongings from the building. The pretense of the National Guards was that they heard a bullet being shot by one of the local guards of the headquarters, a felony denied by the head of that office.

The situation in Kirkouk is increasingly worsening because of the Kurdish monocracy in authority and their marginalization and trivialization of the role of the other races. In addition, the delay of the implementation of resolution 58 of the Interim Constitution (Interim Government Law), which states that the previously confiscated real estate should be returned to its legal owners, is being delayed; this  specially concerns the Turkman minority. Mr. Riyadh Sari Kahya, head of the Turkman Eli Political Party and member in the national council and the constitution writing committee, confirmed the above stated.

10. Refugees

The most prominent human rights violation in this field is driving away the citizens of Falloujah, causing approximately 300,000 persons to become displaced for a period longer than 3 months. Very poor humanitarian aid caused further suffering, especially to women and children. Many still fear the repetition of the military attacks, as has happened in April and September. Further military operations against cities of the Middle Euphrates, and especially in the governorate of Al-Anbar, created even more refugees.

The Palestinian refugees in Iraq have also suffered from transgressions and arbitrarily and unjustified arrests. Some of the cases involved torture and killings, as has happened in Al-Ni'airia neighborhood in Baghdad, where 6 people were arrested including an aged man called Zuhair Hassan Ahmad Alkhazna (a palastinian refugee). His family claimed that they heard about his arrest on Al-Furat Satellite TV channel even before he was actually arrested by the Wolf Brigade, one of the police commando brigades, which is mainly constituted of the militias of the political parties. Alkhazna's body was delivered to the forensic medicine department in the Medical City by an officer in the Wolf brigade, Jwad Abdul'ameer, claiming that he had found the body but knew nothing about its identity. The body carried marks of brutal torture.

In the city of Al-Qa'im, and due to the contunious fighting and air bombardments, 50 - 60 families have fled the city and are still afraid to go back. These operations have resulted in killing 50 civilians, including 8 people from one family of Mr. Soori Hajeej Arrawi. 5 schools, 2 mosques, the health office in Al-Karabla area, as well as the water treatment and the power plant of Al-Qa'im have suffered damages.

About 500 families have fled from the city of Rawa to the Ubaidi area because of the fighting and air bombardments, as governmental relief agencies working there have mentioned.

11. Racism

One of the biggest crimes committed by occupation is establishing the bases of racism by dividing the temporary government authorities and institutions according to racial and religious backgrounds. This practice was widened by the bad-reputed Emergency Law. Therewith, if a certain political party takes control of a certain ministry, the former staff and cadres, especially those of higher and key positions, are being dismissed and released from their offices, so as to be replaced by new staff pertaining to that political party. This, for example, has happened in the Ministry of Electricity at the beginning of the Al-Ja'afari government period. The newly appointed Minister of Electricty belonged to the Shi'ite confession; three General Directors within the Ministry, all belonging to the Sunnite confession, were then dismissed and replaced by three Shi'a counterparts. The same happened in other ministries.

Baan Solagh, the Minister of Interior in Al-Ja'afari government, did the same in his Ministry. He further used security forces which were mainly constituted of the militia of his party (SCIRI). In one incident, a group of security forces (Group 20), who were being trained in Jordan, were surprised to see upon their return, that the post that they were supposed to fill had been given to other people, while they had been fired for no justified reasons. This incident led to the dismissal of 1200 graduates of the security forces, and was confirmed by Noori Alnoori, the General Inspector in the Ministry of Interior.

There is a current debate to merge the different parties' militias into the Iraqi Army without considering the necessity of forming the army from independent individuals who will only follow the orders of the government and not the directions of their parties or who are affected by their parties' policies.

In the city of Samawa and despite the approval of Dr. Ibraheem Al-Ja'afari to appoint 1,987 police men, many of the nominated were replaced by others with different excuses. The replaced police men organized a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday, 19^th July 2005, demanding their rights. The demonstration was ended when the police opened fire on the demonstrators in the presence of the governorate's Mayor Muhammad Alziadi, killing Razzaq Faisal Salman and injuring 7 others.

The security forces have committed many arrests based on citizen's confessions, especially in Sunni dominated neighborhoods in Baghdad. In Alamiriya, Alkhadhra, Al'iskan, and Abu Ghoraib persons were arrested after viewing their IDs according to their confessions and family names.

There are sectarian and racial discriminations in the arrests being made in the cities of Al-Mosul and Karkouk. Kurdish arrestees were released shortly after their arrests because the investigating officers were Kurds.

It is worth noticing that the sectarian feelings are being used only by some of the political parties and militias who want to gain wide public support, employing sectarian propaganda and using their media to strengthen their influence, while a large portion of the Iraqi people reject and resent such racist methods.

n the northern parts of the governorate of Babel, random killings take place among the different religious confessions. The aim of these killings is to start a sectarian civil war that will spill over to other parts of the country. Some of the citizens in that area reported that the violence was started by militias of some of the political parties.

12. Religious and Civil Freedoms

Since the beginning of occupation, the occupation forces did not conceal their fears and hatred towards the Islamic worshiping places since they consider them to be the source of inspiration for those who fight the occupation. Despite all international treaties, concerning the preservation of religious freedoms, the occupation forces failed to respect the sacredness of holy places and of the right to conduct religious rituals.

It has become common practice to launch raids against the worshipping places, such as the raid of Al-Haq mosque in Alsha'ab neighborhood in Baghdad on 21st July 2005 by police forces. Sheikh Ahmad Hasan Alnajjar, the mosque's preacher, along with his son Tariq were arrested, the doors of the mosques were destroyed and its belongings were messed with. Similar acts on the Sunni mosques in Iraq have become daily practice.

The American forces supported by the Iraqi forces have carried out raids against more than 143 mosques in Baghdad, and more than once against the same mosques in some cases. In addition to the desecration of these places of worship, they caused damages to the buildings and to their possessions (see Appendix 2).

The American and the Iraqi forces have killed more than 53 preachers and mosques servants and arrested more than 665 for no clear reasons (see Appendices 3 and 4).

On 20th January 2005, during a routine patrol in Buka jail in Basra city, the American forces tore the holy Qur'an. This profanation resulted in an uproar among the prisoners, who then demonstrated and clashed with the occupation forces, ending with the killing of 4 prisoners and injuring 2 American soldiers.

The Emergency Law is being used to supress many civil rights. In the city of Falloujah, for example, peaceful demonstrations are only allowed after obtaining the approval of the military governor Genral Mahdi Alghrawi, who orders random arrests and receives bribes from relatives of tortured detainees, as was reported by many citizens.

The Council of the governorate of Babil issued a resolution to prohibit peaceful demonstrations until an undetermined date, after an explosion that killed one of the police commandos. This resolution denies the basic civil right to the freedom of expression.

13. The Situation of the Defenders of Human Rights

Many workers in the field of human rights have been denied access to the American and the Iraqi jails. The field team of the Baghdad Center for Human Rights was denied access to the city of Fallujah. One member of the team was assaulted and the others were expelled.

Ali Al-Shammaa', the chairman of the Iraqi Organization of Human Rights, along with 3 of the members were killed in his office. Nothing was taken from the office, indicating that the criminals were not looters but rather that they object to the spread of ideas and to the education of the human rights in the new Iraqi society.

14. Sovereignty of Law

The ill-reputed emergency Law opened the doors to the security and army forces, such as the Wolf Brigade, which pertains to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and which is constituted of individuals from some extremist political militias, to violate human rights. Such as the massive random arrests and the application of extreme methods of torture to obtain false confessions, and displaying these lies-confessions on Al-Iraqia; the Iraqi formal TV channel. Curiously, some of the tortured confessed to have murdered; the names of their victims were actually names of their relatives and friends, who were still alive. These were later known as the "living-dead". In light of these violations, the Committee for Human Rights in the Lawyers Union carried out a large investigation in the city of Al-Mosul, where the above mentioned crimes took place in large scale, based on the Union's order No 3510, issued on 29th march 2005. The investigations took place between the 9th and 15th of April 2005. The results of the investigation are as follows:

• The Iraqi judicial Authority has no influence on the violation activities of the Wolf Brigade because the orders of the Coalition (occupation) Authority state that crimes of terrorism must be handled by the ICCC (Iraqi Central Criminal Court).

• The presidency of the Court of Appeal in Al-Mosul refused to appoint an investigating magistrate to the investigation committee that was headquartered in the Wolf Brigade, since the trivial role of the judges and their presence in such committees cannot impose any judicial legitimacy to the investigation, because these committees are far from following legitimate methods in their investigations.

• Video recordings are used to broadcast dubious confessions, in order to humiliate the detainees, their families and their tribes. These broadcasts of unasserted sayings can turn into a wide social scandal with harmful consequences for the detainees, their relatives, and friends. It was affirmed that elements of terrorism are included in the investigation procedures for political purposes, driving the Wolf Brigade to commit these violations.

• The Director of the Ninawa (Musil) Police Department admitted to the Committee for Human Rights of the Lawyers Union that the wolf Brigade committed violations and carried out investigations that are far from being truthful and that these investigations will be repeated in a proper way.

• The emergency state and the orders of the occupation authority stress that no lawyer can be representing the suspects can be present during the investigation. This is a dangerous precedent encouraging the violations of human rights against the suspects.

• In Al-Mosul police headquarters, a poster hanged on the walls, saying "Policemen, shoot to kill, but economize on bullets". The Human Rights Committee considers such a saying to be a clear invitation for policemen to kill before making sure of the reasons, and further considers it to be an indicator of the legal and humanitarian state of the officials there. The poster was removed after the Lawyers Union Human Rights Committee complained to the Director of Police of Al-Mosul.

• The so called "living-dead" amounted to 27 persons (Appendix 5),  confessed by 11 suspects. The Lawyers Union Human Rights Investigation Committee concluded that the investigators at the Wolf Brigade were full of hatred and prior intentions even before starting the investigations, and that they were driven by political and sectarian motives and trying to cover their inability to enforce security. The common methods of mixing lies with the truth are applied in an attempt to spread a feeling of security.

• The total of the people who were forced to give false testimonies is 23, and is 26 persons have suffered the consequences of these false confessions.

• Questioning some witnesses to the investigations carried out by the Wolf Brigade, the witness (A.T.Y.) stated that the detainees were in a horrible condition. He saw the detainee (B.J.M.) vomiting blood, his head was swollen. He also saw his father's broken hand and his brother's broken fingers. The witness and detainee (T.K.S.) stated that he was subjected to many types of torture and that he was beaten for no obvious felony. The detainee (S.R.S.) stated that he saw marks of torture on the bodies of most of the detainees. He also stated that he had heard the cries of women, sisters of the detainees, brought in by the investigators so as to threaten the detainees, in case they don't confess, with raping the women. He also saw how Sheikh (T.R.S.) was tortured by hitting him on his hands and connecting electricity to his imputed leg and his genitals. They made him falsely confess that he had homosexual intercourse inside the mosque. The woman detainee (A.N.A.) stated that the investigators tortured her and asked her to confess that her detained husband was involved in terrorist acts and that he dealt with Syria and Israel for money. Finally, the detainee (A.A.A.) testified to the Committee, in the presence of a lawyer from Al-Mosul, about the torture he was subjected to and showed them the physical evidence of electric torture and extinguished

cigarettes in his eye and on his body.

• The Union's Committee for Human Rights detected that 4 lawyers were arrested by the American forces, the Iraqi Army and by the Kurdish Peshmarga for no clear reasons and with no prospect of release in the near future. These lawyers are: Sa'ad Muhammad Zaki, Husham Talal Yoosif Alzubaidi, Umar Mahmood Sabah Ahmad, and Miz'al Muhammad Al'adil The Committee demanded compensations for the lawyers who were arrested previously and released in the past.

• The Union's Committee for Human Rights further found out that some victims had died under the torture of the American forces and the Iraqi Wolf Brigade. One case is that of Sheikh Sabbar Aldulaimi (a preacher) who was viciously tortured by putting him in a big hole of neck-high rotten water containing dead bodies. He was kept in the water hole for two days. He died two days after his release, and after having his lower limbs imputed because of his infection with septicaemia. This particular hole was especially used for the clergy men and preachers of the mosques. Another victim is Khalid Rajab Muhammad who was tortured to death by the American forces, as photographs of his body, later shown by his wife (A.A.H.), indicate. A further victim is Adil Ahmad Abdullah Almallah who was tortured to death by the Wolf Brigade and the Ninawa (Mosul) Police and as can be seen in the photos that his wife (N.A.M.) presented.

• The Lawyers' Union Committee for Human Rights confirmed that mosques, preachers, and worshipers were subject of many assaults, aiming at defaming the clergy men and mosques. The mosque of Salih Alnooh was savagely raided, the Imam was assaulted and the mosques properties were stolen.

Further, the possessions of Sheikh Akram Yaseen Muhammad; the mosque's Imam, were taken. The Imam was arrested under the false charge of possessing arms; he still is in detention. After this incident, the mosque was repeatedly raided. Another case was the assault on a mosque in the Bab Likish neighborhood, close to the Municipality building. Sheikh Abu Tabarak (Talal Ra'ad Salman), the mosque's preacher, was arrested. He later appeared on Aliraqia TV giving false testimony, though the marks of torture and burns were clearly visible. The judiciary committee at Ninawa Police Department responsible for investigating cases of detainees issued the decision to release Sheikh Abu Tabarak on July 13th 2005 after it had become clear to them, that the allegations brought against him by the Wolf Brigade were groundless.

• The Union's Committee for Human Rights ascertained that 2 persons, Ammar Sameer Jameel and Husain Abdulkareem Mahmood, were killed by the U.S. forces and that another 20 persons were arrested by American and Iraqi forces on the charge of suspicion (Appendix 7 ).

The American forces disarmed the police force of Al-Amiria Residential Compound in Fallujah and prohibited them from staying at the police station. They threatened the police men with arrest if they continued with their work, accusing them of not being efficient or capable. The residential compound therefore remained without the protection of police or Law and without any alternative of security. This encouraged thieves to rob apartments and to kill civilians, and to further inflame the sectarian conflict.

On the other hand, the military governor of Falloujah city; General Mahdi Alghrawi, refused a list of new policemen which was sent to him by Al-Anbar Governorate Council, claiming that the selection was not efficient. He agreed on the return of 250 police men to the city and another 100 to return to their posts in the outskirts, out of the total police force of 2,000. He thereby hindered relaxation of tension in the city. The feelings of hatred among the citizens towards the men of this military governor increased, since his decisions aim solely at maintaining his and his men's control in the city. The forces of this brigade are often seen in the streets of the city, shooting live bullets in the air for no reason or for simple reasons, such as to open the road for their vehicles. This behavior has become very common for Iraqi and American forces on the streets of most parts of Iraq.

On the night of 28th May 2005, a group of the National Guards was patrolling in the city, when one of the soldiers mistakenly shot himself after their car stumbled on something on the road. His colleagues thought that their patrol was under fire, so they started shooting on everyone around. This resulted in injuring 17 civilians, mainly women and children. One of the injured children died 2 days after. On the next day, an officer in the National Guards gathered the citizens of that area and apologizes to them. Nevertheless, the soldiers responsible for this incident were not punished. Official Iraqi and American sources later claimed that a joint patrol came under attack and that the victims of the incident were a consequence of retaliation.

Many Iraqi legal sides and civil NGOs demand a greater role for the Iraqi judicial authorities in supervising the upcoming referendum and the following elections, especially after the failure of the independent commission for election supervision in fulfilling their responsibility, and as was shown by Iraqi networks monitoring the elections, reporting many misconducts in the election process.

The citizens of Baladrooz area called out complaining about the local police chief; Lieutenant Colonel Ali Isma'eel (known as Ali Cable) and his brother, Colonel Waleed Isma'eel (known as Waleed Cable), who carried out a campaign of random and unjustified arrests against the Sunni Moslems in that area, and especially against the Clergy men such as Sheikh Younis, preacher at Al'islam mosque in Baladrooz, Sheikh Nafi Ali Husain, preacher at Aldahlakia mosque, and Sheikh Hamdan, preacher at Alsumood mosque. Sheikh Ali; preacher at Almustafa mosque, was found dead 10 days after he was kidnapped from his car.

According to the call of the citizens of Baladrooz, 100 persons were detained and tortured, some of them by cutting of their fingers while others were raped. Some of the detained died as a consequence of the torture, such as the detained (A.S.), while the fate and whereabouts of others remains unknown. Other detainees were released after bribing Lieutenant Colonel Ali Cable. Most mosques in the city are now empty and deserted because of these continuous terrorist acts and violations.

Some of the detainees assured, that they were transferred to the Ninawa (Mosul) Police Department after they had been interrogated by the Wolf Brigade. According to the list of names of the transferred detainees, 18 detainees were missing at arrival, while the Wolf Brigade claims to have transferred all of the detainees listed. The director of the Ninawa (Mosul) Police Department documented the statements made by the detainees, who stated that the missing 18 detainees died under torture on the hands of the Wolf Brigade.

15. Sovereignty violations

The Iraqi officials are increasingly admitting that the transfer of power was not effectively implemented, due to which the instable security situation is persistent. The former Minister of Justice declared in the Al-Hayat Newspaper that the Minister of Defense and the military leadership are not allowed to employ and re-employ officers of ranks higher than Captain from the former Iraqi Army. He confirmed that only the American forces have the authority to appoint officers with ranks higher than Captain in both the Ministry of Defense and in the Ministry of Interior. He said that there is no real reason for the delay of handing over the security duties and responsibilities to the Iraqi forces, except for hidden political reasons.

Recommendations

The facts and occurrences stated in this report require true international efforts. The Iraqi people has become the victim of the silence of the international society and its nonfeasance in helping the Iraqi people, resulting in high scale governmental corruption, not to mention the organized criminal acts committed by official and semi-official forces and authorities. Therefore, we would like to put forward the following recommendations:

1. To start an international campaign to release the Iraqi detainees in the American prisons which can form a first step into encouraging the political dialogue among the different Iraqi sides. As the General Secretary of the United Nations has warned, more than 10,000 detainees have been randomly arrested.

2. The withdrawal of the American forces of Iraqi cities as a first step to total departure from Iraq, so that honorable Iraqi cadres, instead of the American forces and government officials, can provide security to the Iraqi people.

3. the legal guarantees for every individual is achieved through giving the judiciary the total independence, and for the judiciary to have a major and effective role on the jib of the executive power (ministry of interior and defense and other security institutions in specific), with the cancellation of private courts that violates the individuals rights.

4. the prisoners should be put in a known places, the is known officially, and the names of the arrested should be all documented , with the place and date of investigation, assuring that the prison should be empty of any torture equipments.

5. Demand that the Security Council of UN issues a resolution by which new procedures and mechanisms to protect democracy and human rights in Iraq are deployed, as follows:

• To accelerate the transfer of international supervision to the UN and to substitute the American forces with Arabic or international forces who did not take part in the occupation of Iraq, thereby stressing on the resolution issued by the European Parliament on the 26th May 2005, stating a supervision period of no longer than one year and in which the armed militias are disarmed and the rule of Law is enforced, so that daily violence finds an end.

• To create international supervising committees which regularly visit all the prisons, outside or in Iraq, where Iraqis are kept prisoners on grounds relate to the two recent Gulf Wars.

• To establish an international investigation committee, which is independent of the Coalition (occupation) Countries and which looks into to cases of political assassinations and mass killings threatening the future of democracy in Iraq, and which warns of establishing new dictatorial regimes.

• To form an international committee specialized in dealing with the effects of environmental pollution in Iraq and which determines the necessary measures to reduce and eliminate these effects.

• To launch an international program to treat the victims of physical and psychological violations of human rights in Iraq.

• To establish independent Iraqi security and military forces, unaffected by confessionals and political factionalism and that armed militias are not allowed to joining these forces, on the ground that these militias are loyal to their parties rather than to their country, people, and law.

• To ask the UN Human Rights High Commissioner to appoint a new supervisor for human rights in Iraq because of the continuous daily crimes and blood baths taking place under the occupation.

• To cancel the emergency Law which has led to huge human rights violations and has failed in improving the security situation by giving way to political rivals to solve their disputes forcefully.

• The independent Iraqi judicial authorities must have the high authority on all issues concerning elections and referendums, in order to guarantee the success of the political process without that election  committees be influenced by political interests, as has happened in the scandalous recent elections. The scandal was covered by the independent commission observing the elections, but uncovered by Iraqi monitoring committees who proved the failure the independent commission.

• To form an international committee to investigate into the corruption and misappropriation of Iraqi funds dedicated to the reconstruction of Iraq, that have taken place since the fall of the Saddam regime and until now. In addition, an international committee investigating into the transactions of the oil for food UN program is required.

• To allow the family members of the victims of the city of Falloujah to remove the remains of their relatives who are buried in mass graves in Al-Sijir area on the outskirts of the city. Further, to demand that the Iraqi government accelerates the compensation payments to the citizens, in order to lessen their

suffering after the demolition of their city. Furthermore, to remove all limitations and regulations imposed on the city and its citizens so that they can freely participate in the political process ongoing in the country.

The international Laws and treaties concerning human rights are based on justice and equality in the protection of all human beings. Therefore, we find that the recommendations we have made, which comply with the context and spirit of the International Law, and the included demands addressed to the International Community are a basic right of the Iraqi people. If the international institutions and governments disregard the crimes and violations committed, their silence would be tantamount to participating in these crimes.