FROM THE AMNESTY INTL. SITE

Political detainees in Iraq are subjected to the most brutal forms of torture. The bodies of many of those executed had evident signs of torture, including the gouging out of the eyes, when returned to their families. The most common methods of physical torture include electric shocks to various parts of the body, pulling out of fingernails, long periods of suspension by the limbs, beating with cables, falaqa (beating on the soles of the feet), cigarette burns on various parts of the body, and piercing of hands with an electric drill. Psychological torture includes threats of bringing in a female relative of the detainee, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee, threats of arresting and harming other members of the family, mock executions and being kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time.

N.(20), a Kurdish businessman from Baghdad, married with children, was arrested in December 1996 outside his house by plainclothes security men. Initially his family did not know about his whereabouts and started going from one police station to another enquiring about him. Then through friends they found out that he was being held in the headquarters of the General Security Directorate in Baghdad. The family was not allowed to visit him. Eleven months later in November 1997 the family were told by the authorities that he had been executed and that they should go and collect his body. His body reportedly bore evident signs of torture. His eyes were gauged out and were filled with paper, and his right wrist and left leg were broken. The family was not given any reason for his arrest and subsequent execution. However, they suspected that he was executed because of his friendship with a retired army general who had links with the Iraqi opposition outside the country and who was arrested just before N.'s arrest and was also executed.

Soon after the attempted assassination of 'Uday Saddam Hussain in December 1996 and the mass arrests that ensued, Salah Mahdi, a 35-year-old traffic warden in al-Mansur married with three children, was arrested. He was accused of neglect because he did not notice the car the assailants used. He was held in the Special Security building and was severely tortured. He died reportedly as a result of torture in around June 1997. His family were told that he had died but the body was never returned to them for burial despite their repeated requests and to date his burial place reportedly remains unknown to the family.