Iraq courts order prisoner amnesty (20,000 prisoners to be freed)

[Barrett808]

Source: AAP

Iraqi courts have ordered around 20,000 prisoners be freed under a sweeping amnesty law that is a pillar of efforts to reconcile the country's divided Shi'ite and Sunni Arab communities, an official says.

"Releasing this many detainees enhances and gives national reconciliation efforts a real boost," Abdulsatar al-Bayrkdar, spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council, which oversees the country's courts, told Reuters.

Bayrkdar said he did not know how many inmates had actually been freed under the amnesty law and prison officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 20,000 comprises convicted inmates as well as those in jail awaiting trial or being held for security reasons.

Read more: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080622/9/6a0a.html

[Old and In the Way]

1. I'm sure there'll be no blowback to this action against our troops.

Can we leave yet?

[ohio2007]

2. I'm sure al Sadr is seething from his classroom in Iran

All those future Sunni voters are going to skew the election results.
oh wait...
he is calling for an election boycott as the current polls indicate he has a snowball chance in Baghdad of increasing his seat count in Parliament


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3244022&mesg_id=3244022

[Arctic Dave]

4. Perhaps those Sunnis who were

detained in our ever so cordial establishments will more likely want to vote with a bullet.

[ohio2007]

7. or perhaps not as

26,000 will remain under detention as per the article;

Charges had also been dropped against an additional 31,800 people who either had arrest warrants against them or who had been accused of crimes but were not in detention.

Bayrkdar added that nearly 26,000 cases had been rejected for amnesty.



http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080622/9/6a0a.html


For the past three months, the #s of civilians killed shows a decline;

http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

So in a few months, maybe some of those included 26,000 will have their cases up for review if the trend continues since almost 50,000 have been released or had warrants dropped.

[Arctic Dave]

13. Does the review board process go something like this.

We have detained you for x amount of time and we know you are innocent. We will let you go free on one condition, you vote for who we say, so we can blunt the Iranian influence that our botched invasion has created.

All snarkiness aside, I have to ask, what type of process is in place that lets that many people be detained and then says, OK you can all go now and as for the rest of you, don't worry about it.

To a mean ol cynic like me, it looks a lot like election rigging.

[Tutonic]

14. This article is confusing.

It makes it sound like the 20,000 prisoners are "insurgency" prisoners that fought against US occupiers. But those prisoners would be held in US military installations and would not be subject ot Iraqi laws. So are the 20,000 normal law breakers (theft, vandalism, assault, etc.)that would otherwise have been incarcerated if Hussein were still in power? The US is hardly going ot release someone held in a military prison so that he/she can run up to the first US soldier and blow him//her up. This article is probably more propaganda than anything else. Also the so called insurgents that are patrolling their neighborhoods are being paid by the US Government to do so--to 1) keep enemies close at hand and 2) to keep unemployment down to less than 50%.

[madeline_con]

3. Maybe the Repugs will forget the accounts of torture by Nov.

I wonder if there will be a fire at GITMO, where there are no survivors to tell tales. :eyes:

[InkAddict]

12. I had a fleeting thought that they were waiting for a

Category V to vindicate themselves but it got NOLA instead. Didn't some believe that this natural catastrophe and subsequent ambivalent response to the storm's destructiveness was due to the evil/in-humanity that existed there???

[TaffyMoon]

5. It`s about time

[EFerrari]

6. Is it just me or does it seem like after nailing down oil deals,

the Iraqi government is telling Bush to get lost?

[ohio2007]

8. "Day laborers wanted"

An Iraqi oil worker adjusts some controls at an oil refinery in the southern Rumaila area in 2007. Iraq wants massive development of its oil production in the medium term, seeking to more than double the average number of barrels per day, an oil adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said in an interview with Der Spiegel.
(AFP/File/Essam al-Sudani)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080621/wl_mideast_afp/iraqeconomyoil_080621104509;_ylt=AjaQCjROtbrdNyZ9IW.FbH5X6GMA

They'll need guards to cover the night shift no sense keeping a willing labor pool locked up when that oil can't flow to China and Europe on its own

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Can you imagine working in a desert contaminated with DU?

Whether it is Iraqis or imported contractors, the environment is now heavily contaminated.

We have gone so far beyond insanity....

[bronxiteforever]

11. Agreed-Great Point!

[bronxiteforever]

9. You got that right-they know he is a lame duck too

[Javaman]

15. that's 20,000 really pissed off people. nt