broder bekomment konkurrenz

Taquiyah, Samstag, 26. April 2003, 23:28 (vor 7881 Tagen) @ Taquiyah

A frenzy erupted yesterday outside Nasiriyah´s
former police station, a quarter-mile from the
prison, where hundreds of young men clawed,
elbowed and jostled one another to get into a
modest-sized hole.

As a few managed to duck down into it, reports
swept the crowd that prisoners were trapped in
underground cells, abandoned by the Baath regime,
with no way to get out. Several people then
threatened to topple a nearby statue in the center
of a roundabout as a related rumor spread that
political prisoners released in 1991 had been seen
exiting from a secret trap door under the statue.

As the crowd grew more agitated, members of the
15th Marines Expeditionary Unit moved in to
investigate but found only dirty sewer pipes
before attempting to disperse the crowd. In Basra
and other cities, similar rumors flew involving
underground prisons.

At the Nasiriyah detention center, Sheik Ajali
followed scampering children through a small
doorway that had not been destroyed by the bombing
and into a part of the damaged building where
several of the cells remain standing.

On the day he was taken into custody, three
plainclothes secret police came to his Hussainia -
the term Shiites use for their mosques - and
quietly and politely asked him to come with them.
"They took me in a decent, quiet way," he said.
"Then the torture started."

Over the next several weeks they tortured him
within the walls of the Nasiriyah security center,
transferred him to a larger prison in Baghdad for
more torture and solitary confinement, he said,
before they transferred him back to Nasiriyah for
still more torture.

During interrogation sessions they pressed him on
whether he had links to Iran - a stronghold of the
Shiite faith - whether he was a member of the
Iranian Duaa Party, what his beliefs were and
whether he was plotting against Saddam. Patiently
and steadily, he said, he denied their
accusations.

The sheik´s wife, eight daughters and four sons
were convinced he had been executed, he said. To
this day, he said he has little idea why he was
released, having signed some papers without
knowing what they said. His family was ecstatic
when he returned, he recalled.

During the torture sessions, which he said went on
for hours at a time, he would draw on his faith.
His torturers forced him to repeat slogans
praising Saddam and to join the Baath party, which
he did - all to survive, he said.

One of the tiny cells still has wires dangling
from the ceiling where prisoners were hung,
sometimes upside down, from their manacles.

Abdul Hammid Al Husona, 36, a businessman, said
yesterday he was detained at the Nasiriyah center
for about a week en route to Jail No. 1 in Baghdad
several years ago.

Husona said he was handcuffed, blindfolded and
denied food. In a step more demeaning than
hurtful, he recalled, he was also hit with his
torturer´s shoes.

He doesn´t know exactly why he was jailed in the
late 1990s other than that he showed in some small
way his distaste for the regime. "During the pain,
I just would try and think of something else," he
said, "anything else."



Sunday, Apr 13, 2003