US Imprisons Innocent Wives and Daughters of Iraqi Insurgents

From MOVELEFT.COM

According to the International Red Cross, 70-90% of the people being detained by the US in Iraq are innocent, picked up in sweeps of houses.

For some of the female prisoners, the American captors don’t even believe they’re guilty of anything. The Americans are holding these Iraqi women to put pressure on their fathers or husbands.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

The Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees the rights of civilians under military occupation, forbids the use of "moral coercion" - such as holding relatives - to get information. It also prohibits punishing anyone for an offense he or she has not personally committed.
......
Last November, coalition forces detained the wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam Hussein's top deputies. After Hussein's capture last year, Mr. Douri became the most wanted Iraqi official. His wife and daughter remain in US custody, though they have not been charged. Human rights monitors have accused the US military of committing a war crime by arresting Douri's wife and daughter. "Taking hostages is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions - in other words, a war crime," warned Human Rights Watch in a Jan. 12 letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


The LA Times describes how some women prisoners are treated by the US, and what awaits them after release:

One woman told her attorney she was forced to disrobe in front of male prison guards. After much coaxing, another woman described how she was raped by U.S. soldiers.
……

A U.S. Army report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison documented one case of an American guard sexually abusing a female detainee, and a Pentagon spokesman said Monday that 1,200 unreleased images of abuse at Abu Ghraib included "inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature."

Whether it was one or numerous cases of rape, many Iraqis believe that sexual abuse of women in U.S.-run jails was rampant. As a result, female prisoners face grave prospects after they are released: denial, ostracism or even death.
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(Attorney Sarah) Janabi and her colleagues said many women who had been detained are wives or relatives of senior Baath Party officials or of suspected insurgents. U.S. Army officials have acknowledged detaining women in hopes of persuading male relatives to provide information. The lawyers said interrogators sometimes threatened to kill detainees.

Every military officer and civilian who has testified before the Senate committee looking into the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners has said that the Geneva Convention applies.
The military should let these innocent women go, and stop detaining people based on who their relatives were. The officers responsible for these intentional detentions of the innocent should be charged with war crimes.

Imagine how disgusted we would be if Iraqis were treating the daughters and wives of our soldiers this way.

http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2004_05_21_us_imprisons_innocent_wives_iraqi_insurgents.asp