 photo:
A Detention in Palestine (Credits: AFP)
A
correspondent sending this article
comments: WHAT follows is the translation of an
article published on May 10th, 2004 in the
Arabic Palestinian weekly newspaper
Al-Manar
(in Arabic) a widely read newspaper which
is published in East Jerusalem. I worked
for Al-Manar between 1991 and
1994.
The editor has strong
and credible sources in different Arab
countries and in Israel. |
The
Daily Life of Kawther SalamIsrael's
involvement in Iraq: Torture and Petroleum
ISRAELI
experts in torture have taken part in the torture
of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib Jail. According to the
Al-Manar
report which was published on the first page of its
edition number 673, The American forces killed 1400
Iraqi prisoner since they occupied Iraq and buried
most of them in the desert, far away in the
countryside. These prisoners died during torture
sessions made by the torture teams, who cut parts
of the prisoners bodies.  Al-Manar
says that there are over 30,000 Iraqi prisoners
spread in different American jails. There are 2,100
women and girls among the prisoners, some of them
are minors. All the women prisoners have passed
through terrible torture sessions, some of them
were raped.
Al-Manar points out that the torture
instructions were sent in writing to the jail
guards and to the interrogators. The torture
experts were following these instructions and this
led to abuse of the the Iraqi prisoners. Their
torture team seriously harmed 37 children under the
age of 13. Al-Manar's sources confirmed that there
are Israeli experts of torture taking part in the
torture of the Iraqi prisoners. The Israeli torture
experts team has transferred to the country of
Israel some of the Iraqi political prisoners and
military officers to continue the investigation
sessions there. Some of these prisoners have
already died. The American torture teams add
different kinds of inhuman torture in the Iraqi
jails besides to the physical torture. They were
forcing the prisoners to take different kinds of
medicine during the torture session. The medical
torture provoked serious symptoms on the prisoners
health who had taken the medicine. Al-Manar mentions that the officers in
charge of torturing the detainees at the Iraqi
prisons were sending daily reports for Washington
with detailed information about the torture methods
used at the Iraqi prisons. The reports mentioned
that the Iraqi prisoners were also tortured in a
prison in Qatar. Al-Manar said that the American persons
whose names have been publicised in the media in
relation to the now well-known scandal regarding
torture of Iraqi prisoners were paid by other
higher officers and political addresses in order to
hide the real facts behind the torture of the
Iraqis. There are high military and political
officers involved in this case, but they are hiding
behind the lower rank personnel. Al-Manar sources ended the report saying
that there are some American military personnel
from the Intelligence and the military police who
have more information about the torture in Iraq and
who have written documents which were sent to
President George Bush himself as well as to
Pentagon and the military officers. These officers
have disappeared. One of these officers was
responsible for burying the Iraqi prisoners after
their death. Do the Israelis really take part in torture of
Iraqi prisoners? There are no western newspapers
writing about the involvement of Israelis in the
torture in Iraq, there was just some initial
speculation about this when the scandal broke out,
which quickly disappeared. But before answering
this question, let us look at some ways in which
the Israeli experts were torturing their
Palestinian prisoners. In brief and according to testimonies of women
detainees which I collected during the first
intifada by directly visiting and talking to these
persons after they were released from Israeli
imprisonment, and by searching through the Al-Haq
Organization for the Human Rights in Ramallah. - Al-Shabah: during the first few days,
there are likely to be at least two
interrogation sessions each twenty four hours,
each one lasting for several hours. Between the
interrogation sessions, the detainee may be
placed in the "Shabah" or "coffin". Both methods
make sleep impossible. Shabah means that the
detainee is made to squat stand with legs bent,
or is made to sit handcuffed to the wall of an
outdoor yard. The "Coffin" is a tiny cell
measuring about one meter square into which the
detainee is locked for hours at a time.
- Beatings: Women are routinely
slapped, and kicked during interrogation session
if they do not readily answer questions. The
interrogator will bang the women's head against
the wall during the same session. This was the
most common and easy way of torture at the
Israeli jails in which the mental state of many
prisoners had been severely affected.
- Electric Shocks: the Israeli
interrogators used the electric shock chair
shock during the investigation. For example,
nineteen year old Maryam Qadumi said that
from the beginning of her interrogation, the
Shabak, the Israeli Intelligence, had used
electric shocks. The interrogators asked her
questions and when she refused to talk, they
took her to a room with a red light and a
special chair. The chair was made of iron and
leather and had wires attached to it. She was
made to sit on it and a prison officer connected
the wires to her legs and arms. She was
extremely frightened. The interrogator who was
in charge told the prison officer to turn on the
current. After this session they took her to the
tiny cell for a couple of hours and then took
her back to the interrogation room.
- Sexual Harassment: while the detainee
is becoming progressively weaker from the
combination of sleep, food deprivation and
physical a abuse, she must also cope with a
barrage of verbal sexual taunts, threats and in
some cases actual assault. Generally these
assaults occur during interrogation
sessions.
Hanan Rahim describes her first
interrogation session in the Jelme detention Center
as follows. "It was my first arrest. The
interrogator who was doing most of the talking kept
insulting me, using sexual insults like "whore" or
"bitch". He told me to look him in the eyes as he
spoke to me, but I avoided his gaze, various threat
were made to me, they said that would rape me and
that they would kill me, They also said that they
would put me with collaborators, and that since
there were no women collaborators available, they
would put me in a room with male
collaborators." The number of interrogators in each session
varies, usually between about two and six. All the
interrogators are male, the detainee is acutely
aware that she is in their sole custody, there in
nobody for her to complain to, or to seek
protection from. One of the most severe reported cases of sexual
harassment and actual assault occurred to Fatma
Abu Bakra from Gaza, who was being held in
Ashkelon Jail. Fatma was interrogated for a period
of fifty days, and eventually made a confession as
a result of the sexual harassment. She reports: "An interrogator calling himself 'Abu Allah',
which mean "Father of God", took me to another
room, I was alone and he played with my face and my
body, breast and my genitals, then said "I want to
get inside you now, this will be very beautiful and
a big enjoyment". My hands were tied so I pushed
his face away from me and started to hit my head
against the wall. He ordered me to sit on floor in
the corner, he then sat in front of me on a chair
with his legs open. When I pushed his hands and
body away, he used a megaphone to ask another
policeman to bring him a special hat with a sponge
and handcuffs. Apparently this special hat was to
protect my head, he hand cuffed my hands behind my
back, while he was doing that, I was shouting at
him that I would expose what he was doing to the
world. His response was "I want to fuck you inside
and I don't care about you, and the public opinion,
lawyers or the Red Cross". We were still alone in
the room. Then he started to play with my body. He
put this special hat on my head and went back to
sitting the same way while I was in the corner. I
screamed all the time and he said. "you have a nice
body for fucking, and you must confess now and say
anything, you have to say something otherwise I
will transfer you from jail to the jail grave, I'll
rape you then I will kill you". At that moment a police woman knocked on the
door and he quickly took his hands away from me.
She told him something and he said, "I'm coming".
She left the room and he was still sitting on the
chair. He opened my handcuffs and went to the door.
The whole time his condition was not normal. I was
saw his pants zipper was open and the underwear was
full. He left me and I was still sitting on the
floor. When he came back, he took me out of the
room and interrogated me in the presence of a
policewoman. I can't say exactly what day this
happened, but it was at night about 8 p.m.. I
didn't tell the interrogators or the policewoman
about what happened to me. I was a afraid of his
revenge, especially after he told me that he didn't
care about public opinion, I want to say that I was
too embarrassed to give details of this event to
the male lawyer who came once to visit me, but it's
easier for me now to talk in front of you as a
woman. She added that there was another event
concerning the interrogator "Steve". He had a
picture in his pocket and often when he talked with
me, he would take the picture out of his pocket and
order me to look at it. I always refused and looked
away. He then would yell at me and force me to look
at it. I saw a picture the size of cigarette
packet, of a man who who had a very big penis. He
told me "That's me when I was young. Look how big
my penis was. Now it's ten times bigger and I'm
going to fuck you with this bigger penis". He tore
of my clothes and I started screaming and hitting
my head against the wall, "Abu Allah" and the
policewoman were in the room at that time. "Abu
Allah" stood between me and "Steve", and Steve took
off his pants and underwear. I screamed and the
policewoman covered her eyes with her hands and
started laughing. Then he caught me and pushed my
body while I continue screaming. Then he ejaculated
on me and put his clothes back on, and began to hit
me on the head. At that time Abu Allah had left and
the policewoman was still in the room. I don't
remember the exact date of this event. This all
happened but it was two days after the event of
"Abu Allah". 
A
visit to the surgery of Pediatrist Dr. Nabil
Salameh Al-Muhtaseb in Hebron, Palestine
For further sexual harassment stories and
information concerning women harassed by the
Israeli interrogators, don't hesitate to write
me or to check the human rights sources,
especially Al-Haq. I can also provide anyone
interested in this matter with some of my
researches. In this article I just described some examples
which came to mind after I read about the Iraqi
prisoner torture testimony, in which I read that
one of the interrogators told the Iraqi detainee
while torturing him that he was called "the Evil
Abu Allah". This reminded me of the Israeli sexual
harassment during the interrogations by the Israeli
experts "Steve" and the other one who called
himself "Abu Allah" during the sexual torture of
Palestinian women detainees. Actually, the Israeli
interrogation and torture teams are using the same
language everywhere they go, without limit. Thinking about this I wondered if the same
Israeli team of torture experts, Abu Allah",
"Steve" and other qualified Israelis were torturing
the Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib ? The American
Pentagon confirmed that there were a foreign
interrogators at Abu Ghraib. That's mean there is a
big possibility that the Israeli interrogators were
taking part in the torture at the Iraqi jails. The
Israeli interrogators are fluent in the Arabic
language, and furthermore they have teached at U.S
military schools. They are more trusted than the
others by the U.S. and they have the same interests
in Iraq as the U.S. It is not a secret that Israel
itself was very interested in this war against
Iraq, what better than executing it through their
proxy, the U.S. The Israeli Foreign Minister Salman
Shoval was in a discussion with the U.S
government about the particiation of Israeli
companies in the "reconstruction" of Iraq,
according to the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Ahronot. Further informations about the
presence of the Israelis in Iraq to which I have to
point in this report comes from information in
Turkish newspapers which was also published in
Yediot Ahronot. According to Yediot Ahronot, the Turkish
government is very angry: the Turkish newspaper
"Ashkam" published a report about Israeli
activities of searching oil in the northern part of
Iraq. The report mentioned that Israelis bought
from the Kurdish people land in the Al-Mosul region
and started searching for the oil there. The
Turkish government was very angry with what the
Israeli are doing, since these activities like will
affect the Turkish interest in the region. Tthe two
governments have reportedly exchanged several
official letters concerning this matter. Another Turkish newspaper, Jumhuriyah,
wrote an article on the first page with the the
title "Israel owns the Oil Lands, A second
occupation in Iraq". Israels response was that
"There was no connection between Israel and the
Kurds in Iraq, and if there is an Israeli
activities there, these belong to Israeli private
companies". In general most of the Israeli private
companies are owned by high-ranking military
commanders, and there is no difference between the
private Israeli companies and the governmental
companies, or private and governmental interests.
They all serve the interests of the Zionist
occupation. Finally, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustakbal
(Arabic) and Arabic edition of the Israeli
newspaper Yediot
Ahronot both published on May 15, 2004
reports that the Turkish Government had cancelled
all military contracts and agreements which were
signed with Israel, and had frozen all the
agreements which were to be signed. The decision
included cancellation the other agreements which
had been signed with American companies. This comes
under the new policy of the Turkish Government,
which refuses the strategy of military cooperation
with Tel Aviv. The decision made during an official
session held by Prime Minister Rajab Tayeb
Erdogan with the presence of the Turkish Chief
of Staff Hilmi Aozkok and Defense Minister
Wajde Gonol. The Turkish Government declared
that they will open new military bids, about which
there will probably be talks with European
companies from France, Britain and Germany. The newspapers mention that Turkey refused the
Israeli application to visit Ankara. Furthermore
Mr. Abed-Allah Al-Gool, the Turkish Foreign
Minister, cancelled an already scheduled visit to
Israel. The President of Turkey Mr. Erdogan refused
to welcome Premier Sharon at the airport of
Ankara during his last visit to Turkey. The projects which Turkey had signed with Israel
and which have been cancelled by Turkey were:
Development of a Turkish airplanes AF-15 and AF-16.
Turkey also cancelled joint development of a Tank
and industrialization deal with Israel. Turkey also
cancelled an agreement to buy Israeli helicopters
of Russian origin. These project had been signed in
1996. The volume of these two projects alone is
reported to be about 6 billiion Dollars. According
to the report, the Turkish Prime Minister also
cancelled a secret agreement to buy 12 unmanned spy
airplanes from Israel. The question is, what are the real fact behind
the cancellations of these agreements with Israeli
and American companies at the same time? Is the
Turkish government still angry with Israel because
they are threatening their interests in the Kurdish
lands in the northern part of Iraq? 
Danish
government accuses British troops
Danish
medics witnessed Iraqi prisoner die after
interrogation-
Sunday
Telegraph The
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was the result
of a fundamental shift in interrogation policy -
but at whose
instigation?
| New
Yorker says Rumsfeld OK'd the criminal Prisoner
Interrogation
Program
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