ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq is holding thousands of people at Nineveh’s overloaded internment facilities in conditions so ‘degrading’ that they amount to ‘ill-treatment’ - including children held on juvenile terrorism charges, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.
“Conditions at the Nineveh pretrial detention facilities are unfit to hold detainees for extended periods of time and do not meet basic international standards. Holding detainees in such conditions amount to ill-treatment,” HRW reported.
The province of Nineveh is home to three detention facilities – Tal Kayf, Faisaliya and Tasfirat – that have the capacity to accommodate 2,500 inmates at best, but are currently housing nearly 4,500 detainees, according to the report by the rights group.
Photos of juvenile and women cells published by HRW show severe overcrowding in these facilities where inmates are not provided enough space to ‘lie down’ or ‘sit comfortably.’
Prison conditions in Nineveh are so bad that even “Lawyers do not have access to the prison to visit their clients – among other reasons, because there is no space for meetings.”
Allegations of abuse in Iraqi detention are far from new. HRW published a 52-page report in March 2018 estimating Iraqi and Kurdish authorities were holding 1,500 children suspected of ties with ISIS. The report alleged that children suspected of ties with the Islamic State (ISIS) had been denied access to relatives and legal representation, and tortured to elicit confessions of ISIS membership “regardless of their actual level of involvement with the group,” HRW children’s rights advocacy director Jo Becker said.
Advocacy groups have accused the Iraqi government of keeping suspects in overcrowded cells with no access to lawyers. Cells built to hold around 20 detainees are often packed with 50, a source working in the jails told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in May, and prisoners are often caught smuggling phones or passing on information during family visits, especially to their wives.
In its latest report, HRW urges the Iraqi government to “ensure that detention before trial is the exception, not the rule, and only applied on an individual basis where it is necessary.”
“The authorities should ensure that there is a clear legal basis for detentions, that all detainees have access to legal counsel, including during interrogation, and that detainees are moved to facilities accessible to government inspectors, independent monitors, relatives, and lawyers, with regular and unimpeded access.
Judges should order the release of detainees if there is no clear legal basis for holding them or if the government cannot fix the inhuman or degrading conditions in which they are held,” the report added.
Iraq's government has declined to provide figures on detention centres or prisoners, including how many are facing terrorism-related charges, although some studies estimate 20,000 are being held for purported ISIS links.
Some facilities have shut down in recent years, including the Abu Ghraib complex that became infamous for prisoner abuse during the US-led occupation.
Others were rocked by riots and prison breaks that allowed detainees accused of "terrorism" to escape.
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