Brutal Images Buttress Anger of Ex-Prisoners

[CShine]

There were photographs at the human rights center here Sunday: of fingers with deep infected gouges; of an imprisoned husband; of the corpse of a former Iraqi general who died late last year in American custody, the swollen pink zipper of an autopsy cut running from his groin to his neck. There was also much screaming.

"I don't want compensation — I only want my husband!" shouted Hadiya Taha, 45, who said she had not seen her husband, Badr Hassan Ali, since he was detained by American soldiers in January. "I don't know the accusations against him! I don't know anything!"

There are likely to be more scenes like the one Sunday at a news conference organized by the Organization for Human Rights in Iraq for former inmates and the families of some of the thousands of prisoners in American-run jails — their anger given new credibility after the release of pictures showing mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib by their American guards.

For months, human rights groups and Iraqi leaders say, they have complained to American officials about the treatment of prisoners. They say that their appeals received little attention, and they concede that they heard little as serious as the images the world has now seen of naked prisoners in hoods and a young female soldier holding one by a leash. But now the scandal has given these complaints a new platform. And Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's promise in a Senate hearing last week to pay compensation to victims has provided a new incentive for people to come forward — though it may be increasingly hard to separate victims from opportunists. One reason for the anger is that the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison seemed to confirm the worst of what many Iraqis believed and more than a few have experienced: that American soldiers, under extreme danger here and thus usually seen patrolling the streets with guns raised, often use excessive force against Iraqis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/international/middleeast/10PRIS.html