Images show pleading Iraq prisoners

[ProSense]

Images show pleading Iraq prisoners

By Waleed Ibrahim and Peter Graff 19 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Rare footage from inside a Baghdad prison camp shows hundreds of inmates packed into wire-mesh tents, protesting their innocence.

"I have been jailed for two years and have never been put before a judge or court!" one prisoner is shown shouting.

The video pictures were given to Reuters Television on Saturday by the office of Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who visited the Rusafa prison compound in eastern Baghdad with his Shi'ite counterpart.

Hashemi told the prisoners that the authorities were working to speed up their cases and he promised better treatment.

The footage showed row upon row of outdoor tents made of wire mesh and covered with white plastic sheeting, each about the size of a basketball court and housing dozens of inmates.

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Prisoners, some stripped to their waists, pressed up against the mesh walls and shouted their innocence. Some chanted Saddam-era Iraqi nationalist slogans.

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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.

EMOTIONAL ISSUE

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.

The treatment of prisoners has been especially resonant in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, when pictures showed U.S. troops sexually humiliating detainees. Washington says such abuse has stopped and those responsible were punished.

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Damning video posted at Daily Kos, May 2008.

[kenny blankenship]

1. I have been jailed for two years and have never been put before a judge or court!

Hey pipe down! We don't have habeas corpus rights either.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

...

[Karenina]

3. ...

[Solly Mack]

4. Hey you

I'm having surgery on the 28th in Heidelberg. Lucky me...

How's it going with you?

[Karenina]

5. You're fine going in and coming out.

Ich kann mich nicht beklagen, Es hat aal immer vigger jon! :hug:

[Solly Mack]

6. Thanks

:hug:

I read articles like in the OP and feel so petty... my own problems are so small in comparison.

I want a better world...and it seems so childish to want it

[OneBlueSky]

7. the human rights violations of the Bush administration dwarf those of any other . . .

administration in U.S. history . . . why Congress is not impeaching his sorry ass is beyond my comprehension at this point . . . seems that they're all part of the problem, not the solution . . .

[ProSense]

8. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

9. Video

Video: Photo: Rare video shows Iraqi prisoners pleading innocence