iraq

Abu Ghraib Victims Speak: August 8, 2004

"Saddam Saleh al-Radi, a former Abu Ghraib detainee, has a unique perspective: He was jailed in Abu Ghraib twice — the first time for trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the mid-1990s. 'What U.S. forces did to me, Saddam Hussein himself did not do,' al-Radi said through a translator. 'During Saddam Hussein's time, we used to be tortured. The scars from the torture I received during the previous regime still mark parts of my body. But I was never forced into nudity. There were never any immoral practices during Saddam Hussein's regime.' [...] After three days of interrogations at one of Saddam's old palaces, he said he was taken to Abu Ghraib, put into a holding cell, and there a hood was placed over his head for what he thinks was about 16 hours. 'When they were torturing me, I lost consciousness,' al-Radi said. 'So, they removed the hood. One of the soldiers then urinated on me.' Then, the hood was put back on. And al-Radi was frog-marched to a cell on the ground floor of tier 1-A, known as the hard site. 'He then started pushing me,' al-Radi said. 'And wherever he saw a wall, he would hit me against it. Wherever there's a door, he would push me and hit me against it.'

Once in his cell, al-Radi said, he was forced, still hooded, down on his hands and knees. 'He pulled the bag off my head, and I saw something I have never seen in my life: A man's buttocks were facing me, and he was completely naked, [and] so were the others with him,' al-Radi said. 'I'm 29 years old. Since I'm mature, around the age of 13 to 14 years, until today, no one has ever seen me naked. Nor have I seen anyone naked at all. 'I am religious,' he added. 'My religion does not allow me to see the private parts of naked bodies of others. And for others to see my naked body, this is haram, forbidden for me. God will not accept this. 'They stripped me naked,' al-Radi said. 'They made me stand on a box used for storing soldier food, I think it's called MREs. I was completely naked with two bags on my head.' Al-Radi mostly blamed two American soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Cpl. Charles Graner, both of whom are now facing military charges, for the alleged rough treatment. According to al-Radi, Frederick, 'threatened me by saying that if I did not cooperate with them by giving them information, they would make the soldier rape me.' What was done to him has had a terrible effect, he said. He had become engaged to be married just four days before he was arrested, but broke it off immediately after he was released from prison.

'For me to commit to a woman, I will need to be truthful to my other half,' al-Radi said. 'I feel that something is missing inside me. How can I say any of this to my wife? I am sure she will lose all respect toward me.' And that was before the world saw those photographs of things that had happened to him.

'Before the publishing of the photographs, I had been keeping my experience to myself,' he said. 'After the publishing of the photographs, my mother came to me and asked me, 'Have they done to you what they have done to them?' I had to say, 'No.' Then, a relative of mine, who was detained with us and who knew of my story there, told my family what he knew, and that they did so-and-so to me.' Now, he said, he doesn't see anyone — not his mother or brothers or sisters-in-law. He's too ashamed."
[ABC News]

Steve Prothero: "Beheading and Shock" [NPR]: July 1, 2004

"Commentator Steve Prothero reviews the history of the act of beheading in light of the several instances of such action against hostages in the Mideast. He says the practice is still done by the state in that part of the world, but "freelance" beheaders can still shock. He says at one time beheading was thought to be the more humane way to kill someone -- better than stoning or drawing and quartering."
[NPR's All Things Considered]

"There Are No Journalists In the Arab World": July 29, 2004

Arab media authority Dr. Mamoun Fandy wrote a critique of the Arab press in the London Arabic-language daily 'Al-Sharq Al0Aqsat' that has been translated into English and posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute:

"Thousands of stories should be written on the lives of Iraqis - but where are the journalists?! Is it the lack of professional journalists that [makes] these journalistic stories remain unknown?' [...]
'The first [problem] is that our culture is not like the Catholic culture that emphasizes confession, particularly when the individual has sinned. Likewise, an individual confessing a crime against himself or others [is considered] unacceptable among us. We raise our sons [with the belief] that it is not manly to confess, to cry, or to acknowledge that repression and oppression have broken an individual's determination and perhaps damaged his masculinity. Our newspapers will focus only on heroic deeds and overcoming difficulties. This is praiseworthy. But there are many personal defeats, retreats, and torments, and we must let those who have experienced them talk about them. This requires change in the newspaper culture, or in the so-called newsroom culture. The first [problem] is that our culture is not like the Catholic culture that emphasizes confession, particularly when the individual has sinned. Likewise, an individual confessing a crime against himself or others [is considered] unacceptable among us. We raise our sons [with the belief] that it is not manly to confess, to cry, or to acknowledge that repression and oppression have broken an individual's determination and perhaps damaged his masculinity. Our newspapers will focus only on heroic deeds and overcoming difficulties. This is praiseworthy. But there are many personal defeats, retreats, and torments, and we must let those who have experienced them talk about them. This requires change in the newspaper culture, or in the so-called newsroom culture.[...] Arab officials do not respect the press as a means for conveying information, [...] But even our officials behave differently [than officials in the West]. Instead of rebutting the author of an article by [writing another] article, he picks up the telephone and talks to the newspaper's owner to [have him] silence the author."
[Middle East Media Research Institute]

Beheading As A Cultural Practice

"Background
Beheading with a sword or axe goes back a very long way in history, because like hanging, it was a cheap and practical method of execution in early times when a sword or an axe was always readily available. The Greeks and the Romans considered beheading a less dishonourable and less painful form of execution than other methods in use at the time. The Roman Empire used beheading for its own citizens whilst crucifying others. Beheading was widely used in Europe and Asia until the 20th century, but now is confined to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Yemen and Iran. Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded 52 men and 1 woman for murder, rape, sodomy and drug offences in 2003. One man was beheaded in Iran – the first for many years. Beheading was used in Britain up to 1747 see below and was the standard method in Norway abolished 1905, Sweden up to 1903, Denmark and Holland abolished 1870, and was used for some classes of prisoner in France up until the introduction of the guillotine in 1792 and in Germany up to 1938. China also used it widely, until the communists came to power and replaced it with shooting in the twentieth century. Japan too used beheading up to the end of the nineteenth century prior to turning to hanging. [...]

Saudi Arabia - the beheading capital of the modern world
Saudi Arabia uses public beheading as the punishment for murder, rape, drug trafficking, sodomy and armed robbery, apostasy and certain other offences. 45 men and 2 women were beheaded in 2002 and a further 52 men and 1 woman in 2003.  The condemned of both sexes are given tranquillisers and then taken by police van to a public square or a car park after midday prayers. Their eyes are covered and they are blindfolded. The police clear the square of traffic and a sheet of blue plastic sheet about 16 feet square is laid out on the ground. Dressed in their own clothes, barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind their back, the prisoner is led by a police officer to the centre of the sheet where they are made to kneel facing Mecca. An Interior Ministry official reads out the prisoner's name and crime to the crowd of witnesses. A policeman hands the sword to the executioner who raises the gleaming scimitar and often swings it two or three times before approaches the prisoner from behind and jabbing him in the back with the tip of the sword causing the person to raise their head. Normally it takes just one swing of the sword to sever the head, often sending it flying some two or three feet. Paramedics bring the head to a doctor, who uses a gloved hand to stop the fountain of blood spurting from the neck. The doctor sews the head back on, and the body is wrapped in the blue plastic sheet and taken away in an ambulance. The body is then buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery. Beheadings of women did not start until the early 1990s, previously they were shot. 33 women have been publicly beheaded up to the end of 2003. Most executions are carried out in the three major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dahran. Saudi executioners take great pride in their work and the post tends to be handed down from one generation to the next."
[Capital Punishment - UK]

Mamoun Fandy: "Where's the Arab Media's Sense of Outrage?": July 4, 2004

Mamoun Fandy is a columnist for two daily newspapers, Asharq al-Awsat in London and al-Ahram in Cairo. He is a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. This commentary discusses trends in reporting by Arab media.

"As I scanned Arab satellite channels and Arabic newspapers, I found a lot of reporting on the brutal attacks, but very little condemnation and a widespread willingness to run the stomach-turning video and photos again and again. [...] I have watched perhaps a dozen Arab channels and read countless newspapers in recent weeks. I found that few Arab commentators and journalists noted either that major shift or its significance. [...] I am aware of only a handful of columnists, most notably the Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed al-Rubai, who condemned the killings unequivocally. Some reporters and analysts intimated to me that they were afraid to denounce the beheadings; others provided distorted coverage that blurred the line between terrorism and Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. [...] Al-Jazeera is the same network that calls every Arab suicide bomber a shaheed, or martyr. And yet its anchors take care to refer to Abdul Aziz al-Maqrin, who claimed to have beheaded Johnson, as the 'man who Saudi Arabia and Washington call a terrorist.' [...] I went directly to Abdul Rahman Rashed, the head of al-Arabiya, and asked him why most Arab commentators remain silent about these horrific acts of violence and why his channel and al-Jazeera give so much airtime to the terrorists. Rashed blames both contemporary Arab culture and the culture of Arab newsrooms. [...] I also talked with fellow Arab writers and journalists to seek further answers, and it became obvious that many were outraged over how the beheading stories had been handled and why so many Arab journalists are afraid to express their anger publicly or put it in writing. [...] Islamic radicals have killed writers in Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere whose work challenged the logic of martyrdom and 'random jihad,' or killing foreigners in the name of Islam. But the lack of condemnation of the beheadings, despite their barbarism, is a direct result of a broad and dangerous trend in Arab media and in Arab culture broadly. The Arab world today swims in a sea of linguistic violence that justifies terrorism and makes it acceptable, especially to the young. [...] In each country, I was struck that al Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, al Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is 'cool' in the eyes of young people. Why? Arab culture is being corrupted by the media that glorify violence, but also by schoolbooks that present only one role model for Arab children: the Jihadists and those who excelled at battling non-Muslims. [...] This trend must be reversed -- and the responsibility for doing so lies not just with the media. Unless Arabs themselves muster the courage to speak out against these heinous acts and those who perpetrate them, very little success can be made in the war on terrorism. [...] The American media should also stop replaying images of violence from al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, because when the Arab media air these gruesome images, they animate the logic of terror. They export fear to America. If the Americans did not import these pictures, the Arab media would stop manufacturing them. That could be a first step toward defeating the terrorists who kill not just for Allah and jihad, but for airtime."
[Washington Post]
[Reprinted by Houston Chronicle]

Graham-Hough Cornwell: "Humiliation and the Gaze at Abu Ghraib: A Postmodern View": June 2, 2004

"Understanding the gaze and the power it holds is central to understanding the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners. The Koran clearly states the importance of modesty and fully covering oneself. Consider what the Koran says about the gaze: “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: and Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.” It is thus up to each person to avoid using one’s gaze. To an American, it is extraordinarily difficult to imagine “lowering” our gaze. We gawk and stare at the exposed and unfortunate, whether it’s rubber-necking at a car crash or watching nudity on the movie screen. To us, the gaze is a right and a privilege. Where Muslims generally consider the public sphere to offer some degree of privacy, we frequently consider everything not behind closed doors to be public. Where we believe in the concept of “look, but don’t touch,” the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) states that “adultery of the eyes is looking at that which is not allowed." [...] There is an irony then in the pictures of Iraqi prisoners stripped down, in homosexual positions, being taunted by female American soldiers. To call it irony is probably not nearly enough; it is a complete reversal of the values these men have known, throwing them into sinful positions at the mercy and for the entertainment of their female guard. In many ways, it is an example of the gaze re-worked. In Arab cultural practice it is more accepted for men to stare than for women to; many Arab and Muslim thinkers have suggested that, in practice, it is more the female’s responsibility to cover herself and frustrate the male gaze. A woman must ensure that a male is not tempted to look at her. [...] Akbar S. Ahmed, one of the leading scholars on contemporary Muslim culture, says in his book "Postmodern and Islam: Predicament and Promise": “The Western media are ever-present and ubiquitous, never resting and never allowing respite. They probe and attack ceaselessly, showing no mercy for weakness or frailty.” Many of the ideas and images Western media project to Muslims are subversive, including images of alcohol, drugs, homosexuality, and nudity. The internet and rise of bootleg, satellite-dish television make the increasing prevalence of these images an inevitability.""
[Graham Hough-Cornwell: Unpublished paper for "Representing Reality," a class at Carleton College: June 1, 2004]

Mark Matthews: "Abuse Tailored to Arabs, Experts Say": May 23, 2004

"U.S. authorities adapted interrogation techniques to exploit the religious and cultural sensitivities of Arabs, according to human rights monitors and experts in the treatment of torture victims. [...] Forced homosexual acts, parading naked detainees in front of female guards and other inmates, and forcing male prisoners to wear women's underwear all point to attempts to affront Muslim religious taboos and use sexual shame as a method for breaking down prisoners' resistance to interrogation, experts said. [...] Public nakedness for men and women and homosexual acts are particularly degrading, experts said, noting photographs of nude prisoners piled in a pyramid and accounts of forced masturbation and sodomy. [...] Muslim men "are not supposed to show their body from the knee to the navel to anyone who is a stranger" [...] "The whole notion of ladies' panties - someone thought that up as a particularly humiliating thing for an Iraqi man." [...] The result of such shame is to "humiliate a person to the core," rendering them powerless, which, in turn, reduces resistance to interrogation..."
[Baltimore Sun]