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Iraqi women endure Abu Ghraib legacy
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-110214.html
Iraqi women endure Abu Ghraib legacy
By Ramzy Baroud
Feb 11, '14
"When they first put the electricity on me, I gasped; my body went rigid and the bag came off my head," Israa Salah, a detained Iraqi woman told Human Rights Watch (HRW) in heart-rending testimony released last week.
Israa, not her real name, was arrested by US and Iraqi forces in 2010, according to HRW's "No One is Safe" - a 105-page report released on February 6. The HRW report says Israa was tortured to the point of confessing to terrorist charges she didn't commit, and that she is just one of thousands of Iraqi women being detained illegally and abused.
HRW writes that Israa was handcuffed, pushed down on her knees, and kicked in the face until her jaw broke. When she refused to sign a confession, electric wires were attached to her handcuffs.
Welcome to "liberated" Iraq, a budding "democracy" that American officials rarely cease celebrating. There is no denying that the brutal policies of the Iraqi government under Nouri al-Maliki are a continuation of the same policies of the US military administration, which ruled over Iraq from 2003 until the departure of US troops in December 2011.