Report: Sweeps in Iraq Cram Two Jails With Detainees

Iraqi soldiers guard detainees during house sweeps in Baghdad's northwest Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliya today. Under 'emergency powers' enacted for the Baghdad crackdown, no charges need ever be filed and they are subject to indefinite detainment.

BAGHDAD, Wednesday, March 28 — Hundreds of Iraqis detained in the Baghdad security crackdown have been crammed into two detention centers run by the Defense Ministry that were designed to hold only dozens of people, a government monitoring group said Tuesday.

The numbers suggested that the security plan’s emphasis on aggressive block-by-block sweeps of troubled neighborhoods in the capital had flooded Iraq’s frail detention system, and appeared to confirm the fears of some human rights advocates who have been predicting that the new plan would aggravate already poor conditions...

In one of the detention centers, in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, 705 people were packed into an area built for 75, according to Maan Zeki Khadum, an official with the monitoring group. The other center, on Muthana Air Base, held 272 people in a space designed to hold about 50, he said, and included two women and four boys who were being held in violation of regulations that require juveniles to be separated from adults and males from females.

Read the rest at the NY Times

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