IRAQ: Iraqi Vice President visits juvenile prison, steps up efforts to combat abuse

During a visit to Baghdad's juvenile institution, vice president Tareq al-Hashimi reveals plans to battle physical and mental abuse of young felons inside Iraq's juvenile detention centres. Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president Tareq al-Hashimi visited a Juvenile institution on Tuesday (September 25) in an attempt to draw attention to the justice system, which has long suffered from neglect and disruption. Iraqi children who find themselves in trouble with the law are being held in terrible conditions in juvenile institutions. The detention centre which al-Hashemi visited in northern Baghdad holds approximately 387 inmates, the majority of which are charged with petty crime, criminal damage, as well more serious misconducts such as insurgency. During the vice president's visit, young detainees waved at him from a small window in their cell door. Al-Hashimi made promises that the Iraqi government would work to speed up investigations, which could lead to many of the felons being discharged. Many inmates claim that they did not commit criminal acts and have been deprived of their basic rights within the juvenile centre, seeing or contacting their families for example. "I was shopping from a market in Haifa street. They took me to the fifth brigade. They beat me and forced me to confess about things that i did not do. I was buying a cucumber and tomato.....," said one unidentified inmate. Another inmate, Ali Mohammed Mahal from Amiriya district said "they told me that they want to question me and my father for five minutes. They said that they would let us go. They brought me here. I have epilepsy and a weak spine." Al-Hashimi and a number of Iraqi officials from the Iraqi Islamic party discussed the treatment of the inmates at great length and agreed that the government should work on reforming the mistakes of its felons, and not punish them. "We should correct the mistake of those who did it and return them to society as good citizens, but not punish and humiliate them and their families. It is not acceptable to have such things happening in Iraq," said al-Hashimi. "We cannot be part of a government that treat its sons in such an ugly way," he added. Al-Hashimi and his Shi'ite counterpart Adel Abdul Mehdi visited the Rusafa prison compound on August 18, witnessing rare scenes of the prison camp with hundreds of inmates packed into wire-mesh tents. U.S. forces and Iraq's own security forces have imprisoned tens of thousands of detainees without charge in the four years since the fall of President Saddam Hussein. Many of the prisoners held by both U.S. and Iraqi authorities are Sunni Arabs accused of participating in the insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government, and their treatment is an emotional issue for the Sunni Arab community.

ITN Source | September 26, 2007

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