dragger
27.04.05, 01:26
www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1997_hrp_report/iraq.html
During the year, the Special Rapporteur continued to receive reports of widespread disappearances. The Government continued to ignore the more than 15,000 cases conveyed to it in 1994 and 1995 by the U.N. Working Group on Enforcement on Involuntary Disappearances, as well as requests from the Governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on the whereabouts of those missing from the 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait and from Iran on the whereabouts of POW's Iraq captured in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
The United Nations has documented over 16,000 cases of persons who had disappeared. According to the Special Rapporteur, most of these cases occurred during the Anfal Campaign. He estimates that the total number of Kurds who disappeared during Anfal could reach the tens of thousands. Human Rights Watch estimates that the total at between 70,000 and 150,000, and Amnesty International (AI) at more than 100,000. Many individuals who disappeared in the wake of the 1996 Government attack on Irbil may have been killed late in the year, in the alleged government campaign to "cleanse the prisons" (see Section 1.a.).
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The Constitution prohibits torture, however, the security services routinely tortured detainees. According to former detainees, torture techniques included branding, electric shocks administered to the genitals and other areas, beating, burning with hot irons, suspension from rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on the skin, rape, breaking of limbs, denial of food and water, and threats to rape or otherwise harm relatives. The security forces killed many of their torture victims and mutilated their bodies before returning them to the victims' families. There are persistent reports that the families are made to pay for the costs of the execution, before the bodies are returned to them. Iraqi refugees arriving in Europe often reported instances of torture to the receiving governments and--as was the case with a group of refugees arriving in Italy in June--displayed scars and mutilations to substantiate their claims.
