Twenty years after the US invasion of Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison past still haunts Iraqis

Fortified military camps, watchtowers… And instead of a city center, it’s a 115-hectare prison whose walls stretch endlessly. Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, 20 kilometers west of Baghdad, is not a good city to live in. A million people live there and an atmosphere of fear even seems to reign in its dirty and deserted streets. Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq by the United States against the advice of the UN to bring down the regime of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib and its giant prison have become the world symbol of the worst abuses against human rights. the man. Acts of torture were practiced there on a large scale by military of theus army and officers of the CIA. Photos taken by the American soldiers themselves had leaked to the media.

“There were maybe 80% of the jailers who were from Abu Ghraib, so there is a connection between the city and the prison”, explains Salam Habib, Iraqi researcher for the British NGO AirWars, and investigative journalist. Salam Habib met many former detainees, marked for life: “They don’t want to say what happened to them, even with their families, their loved ones, they are ashamed and prefer to hide it from society. One of them said to me: ‘When I pass Abu Ghraib , I lower my head, I don’t want to remember what happened to me here, the very name of Abu Ghraib gives me nightmares’.”

“Electric torture and rape were common. They starved us or didn’t let us sleep for days”

Ali Al-Qaisi

at franceinfo

The photo of Ali Al-Qaissi has gone around the world. He is standing on a box, arms outstretched connected to electric wires, a hood over his head. A trickle of blood escapes. Reached by Skype, he is now a refugee in Berlin and founded the Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons. “Among the common torture techniques, they plunged our heads under water until we thought we were drowning or put us under freezing water“says Ali Al-Qaissi. After a year, Ali Al Qaissi will end up being released without charge against him.

Like him, more than 70% of the 50,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib have been arbitrarily imprisoned according to a Red Cross report. This is according to Hassan Al-Janaby, 50 years old and former captain of Saddam Hussein’s guard. He runs a discreet cosmetics store in the Abu Ghraib souk: “Every day, US or Iraqi forces arrested between 100 and 150 people, many without charge.“. On the American side, only the officer who ran the prison, General Janis Karpinsky, will end up being sidelined and some soldiers accused of torture will be condemned. George Bush publicly apologized and the story ended there.