Iraqi children held in US-run prisons left without support

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/ca64c33eacedf89ee472af102b095b76.htm

BAGHDAD, 30 July (IRIN) - He isn't a criminal, but just the sight of a police officer terrifies 14-year-old Omar.

The boy was released last month from an Iraqi prison, after being detained there for more than seven months. "They arrested me because they said I was a suspect after a car bomb exploded in a road near my home and resulted in the killing of an American," Omar explains. He happened to be near the explosion and was arrested along with adult Iraqis suspected of the attack.

Omar was one of 450 detainees who were let out of the two Iraqi and US-run prisons on 27 June, under a national reconciliation plan aimed at bringing insurgents into the political process and ending the bloodshed in Iraq.

Although Omar was falsely arrested, dozens of other children have been imprisoned for their roles in attacks, or because poverty turned them to crime, according to reports from local and international groups and the news media in the past three years.

Omar said the experience of being in prison was terrifying, "and I was crying day and night for my family." The trauma of the experience remains with him: "I would rather die than go there again."

[rubberducky]

1. "I would rather die than go there again"

And, he is only 14!!!!!! Strong words from a young teen-ager. Are these people really better off without Saddam?? I wonder. How many died under Saddam`s rule compared to Bush`s rule?

[NNN0LHI]

2. This post getting only one response makes me...

...:scared:

Quick look at what them Israelis are doing over there.

Don

[cali]

3. We much prefer to look at the sins

of the Israelis, than what our own country is doing- and I hate to break it to DUers, but what we're doing in Iraq is even worse than what the Israelis are doing in Lebanon.

[theHandpuppet]

4. You are absolutely right

Like I said in a post the other day, we are living in a glass house and throwing stones.

[NNN0LHI]

5. And you and I don't agree on much do we?

It was bound to happen some day.

Don

[cali]

6. heh.

a random one in a million occurrence.

[malaise]

7. Truthfully if you look at Iraq

you see Lebanon and if you look at Lebanon you see Iraq.
Thousands of Palestinians including teenagers are in Israeli jails with no charge. Put simply America and her allies are the enemies of humanity.