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Dead bodies of tortured civilians are dumped in Baghdad streets almost every day. |
CAIRO — Pools of blood are running across Iraq with civilians being brutally and indiscriminately tortured at an alarming daily rate in detention centers as well as by rampant sectarian-oriented militias across the country, the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in a new report.
"Detainees' bodies show signs of beating using electrical cables, wounds in different parts of their bodies including in the head and genitals, broken bones of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns," said the report.
Bodies found in the Baghdad morgue "often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones -- back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails," it added.
UNAMI blamed human rights abuses on "the combined actions of insurgent groups targeting the Iraqi security forces and the MNF-I (multi-national forces) as well as those working in the public administration, in business or in various professions."
Reports of torture in detention facilities were typically linked to interrogations, it stressed.
The UN warned that "a growing perception of impunity for current and past crimes committed risks further eroding the rule of law."
It urged the government to publish the findings of an investigation into human rights violations committed in Al-Jadiriya detention center in 2005.
"The publication of the Al-Jadiriya’s report, the establishment of a formal inquiry into this case and the prosecution of those found to be responsible for allegations of human rights violations, would serve the people and the Government of Iraq and provide a powerful signal that the country is firm in its commitment to establish a new system based on the respect of human rights and the rule of law."
A British soldier on Tuesday, September 19, pleaded guilty to war crimes against civilians in Iraq, becoming first UK armed forces member to admit systematic abuse of Iraqis.
US soldiers were accused of being involved in a string of cold-blood killing of Iraqi civilians, including children and women, in the cities of Haditha and Ishaqi.
The most appalling scandal of the occupation forces abuse of Iraqis was in 2003 at the Abu Gharib prison, where prisoners were sexually and physically abused by their American guards.
Sectarian
The UN said bodies dumped in the ditches and streets of Baghdad and elsewhere across the country as a result of sectarian violence also "bear signs indicating that the victims have been brutally tortured before their extra-judicial execution."
The signs of widespread torture are confirmed by reports from surviving eyewitnesses, it added.
One individual, for example, said members of a Sunni extremist group beat him with electrical cables and iron bars to make him disclose the Muslim sect he belonged to.
"The body of another man kidnapped by Shiite militias bore signs of facial mutilation, had fingers missing from his hands and had a significant perforation -- presumably from a power drill -- below his left shoulder," the report said.
Iraq has increasingly been afflicted by sectarian-linked attacks, prompting a redrawing of some neighborhoods, with minorities moving out and going to places where they are part of the majority community.
Many Iraqis, Sunnis and Shiites, had lined up at state registries over the past few months, believing that name changing is the best protection.
The UN report said the government's failure to crack down on such horrid human rights violations was "challenging the very fabric of the country" by driving victims to exact revenge on their own, thus fueling further violence.
The phenomenon risked further polarizing Iraqi society and leading to "a self-reinforcing pattern of sectarian confrontation," it warned.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday warned that Iraq was on the brink of all-out civil war.
Click to read the UN report in full
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