Jordan Times
Friday, May 26, 2006
Families of prisoners in Iraq press for resolution
AMMAN (IRIN) — The families of Jordanian
prisoners in Iraq have appealed to the government in hopes of securing the
release of their loved ones, some of whom have been held without trial since
around April 2003.
In an emotional letter sent to Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit this week, the
families of 25 men currently detained in Iraq said they feared their relatives’
lives could be at risk due to Iraq’s deteriorating security situation.
“Please help us release our sons, they’ve done nothing wrong — their only crime
is that they are Jordanians,” family members pleaded.
Government officials and human rights groups say they lack comprehensive data on
the precise numbers of Jordanian nationals currently in Iraqi prisons.
According to some parliamentarians who have followed the issue, however, there
are at least 50, many of whom had gone to Iraq following the 2003 US-led
invasion to look for stranded relatives or offer humanitarian assistance.
Others had been registered students at Iraqi universities.
Um Mahmoud, for example, has not seen her son Abdullah, a student at the
University of Baghdad, for three years.
“As soon as the war broke out, we stopped hearing from him... We thought he was
dead,” she said.
Six months ago, however, Um Mahmoud received a letter from her son via the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in which he assured his family
that he was in good health.
“They told me he was fine, but we don’t know what happened afterwards, and we
haven’t heard from him since,” she said.
According to Abdul Karim Shreideh of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR),
the whereabouts of most Jordanian prisoners in Iraq remains unknown.
“We don’t know the location of most prisoners... They’re lost between the
American-run prisons and the Iraqi prisons. Some are also being held by Iraqi
militias,” he said.
The AOHR, in cooperation with local rights groups, is currently collecting
information in hopes of pinpointing the location of each prisoner. “The problem
is, we don’t know who to talk to — the Americans or the Iraqis,” he said.
ICRC spokeswoman Nada Daduni pointed out that some Jordanians were being held by
the US military without trial in Abu Ghraib prison as well as in Boka near Basra
and Sozi in the north.
Last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised what it described as “the
continuing detentions without charge or trial of thousands of people in Iraq who
are classified by the Americans as ‘security internees’.”
HRW went on to accuse the US military of denying detainees the right to
challenge the legality of their detentions before a court.
“Some of the detainees have been held for over two years without any effective
remedy or recourse,” noted the rights watchdog, “while others have been released
without explanation, apology or reparation after months in detention.”
In January 2004, 20 Jordanian prisoners were released by US-led forces in Iraq
after an almost year-long detention. Upon their release, some of them said they
had been mistreated by coalition forces during their imprisonment.
Meanwhile, government sources say they are in contact with the US-led coalition
authority in an effort to secure the release of all Jordanian prisoners in the
country.