News Brief

-23/3/04

Christian peacemakers have launched an "Adopt-a-Detainee" Campaign which matches individual Iraqi detainees with church congregations.

No one knows just how many Iraqis have been detained by the U.S. military. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) asserts between 11,000 and 13,000 but they acknowledge that their records are incomplete. The Baghdad-based Organization for Human Rights (OHR) estimates at least 18,000.

Since July, 2003, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has worked to ensure justice for Iraqi detainees. Team members compiled a report in December based on 72 cases of Iraqi citizens detained and imprisoned by U.S. forces. The report identifies numerous violations of human rights guaranteed to detainees and their families under the Geneva Conventions and related international law, including house raids using excessive force against unarmed civilians, theft and destruction of personal property, such as jewelry and money, and mistreatment including torture during interrogation and in prison camps.

The report also highlighted inadequate living conditions for prisoners, including shelter and sanitation, and denial of access to legal representation or due process.

Church congregations who take part in the scheme and "adopt" an Iraqi detainee are asked to organize their members to write two letters on the detainee's behalf - one addressed to a U.S. legislator and one to an official in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq.

The U.S. claims the Geneva Conventions do not apply to its war on terror. "Security Detainees," as they are called, are thus held with no formal charges for indefinite periods of time.

Christian peacemakers in Iraq have witnessed how these patterns of abusive behavior fuel support among ordinary Iraqis for insurgency attacks on Coalition Forces.

"Security Detainees," as they are called, are typically swept up in night-time raids in which Coalition troops storm a house, smash open bedroom doors waking everyone including children, and "secure" the environment.

Soldiers round up all the men of the household, take them outside in their night clothes, and force them onto the ground regardless of weather conditions. The men are handcuffed, hooded, and transported to the nearest military base for preliminary interrogation.

Detainees are eventually transferred to a regional prison facility where they are held without formal charges for indefinite periods of time. There is no functional judicial process in place for determining a prisoner's guilt or innocence and most are routinely denied access to legal counsel and family visits. Human rights workers, including the Red Cross, are refused entry to prisons and camps making it impossible to monitor conditions.

Many former detainees report suffering abusive treatment while in prison including beatings, deprivation of food and water, and confinement in overcrowded, open-air compounds without adequate clothing, shelter from the elements or basic toilet facilities.

Families of detainees have virtually no access to information as to the whereabouts or health conditions of their loved ones. Some do not even know if their family member is alive. Usually the only news a family can get about their detained relative comes when a fellow prisoner is released.

The absence of such information and the uncertainty of indefinite separation contribute to the already enormous hardships experienced by families of the detained. Having lost their main income earners, many families must fend off destitution. Some have become homeless, many feel vulnerable to criminal activity, and all face increased emotional stress. Frightened children wonder when their fathers will come home and dread the arrival of bedtime for fear of another house raid.

While some detainees included in this campaign may have been involved in armed resistance to the U.S. occupation, most have not. For Christian Peacemaker Teams, the concern is one of human rights, not the guilt or innocence of a particular prisoner. Every detainee is a human being and is entitled to certain protections and rights under international law and, more importantly, under God's law, say CPT.

More information is available at the

CPT website.