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Focus on victims of penal mutilation

[Iraq] Victim of mutilation under Saddam Hussein's rule. IRIN
In August 1994, a former Iraqi sergeant, Sattar Suwaylam underwent surgery at the Basra Teaching Hospital to sever his right ear as punishment for deserting the army. "Not only was my ear chopped off, but I was flogged 50 times with electrical cables," Suwaylam recalls. Following the mutilation, he was imprisoned for eight months before being released to face life with a changed appearance. Muhammad Abd al-Amir, aged 32, is an even more shocking case: he had both ears chopped off and a big X tattooed on his forehead, also in August 1994, because he had fled the army three times. "Before I had the operation, I was told to pay for it first, and when I said I had no money they took a bottle of blood from me," he said. Abd al-Amir added that he had also served three months in prison, where he had seen others who had had their ears chopped off. Some died there because they had needed treatment which was unavailable. "When I left the prison, I found that my car had been taken and my government food ration stopped," he said. LEGAL PROVISION A law was passed by Saddam Hussein's Revolutionary Leadership Council of the ruling Ba'th Party in 1994 providing for the mutilation of deserters, especially after many absconded during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 or after the Shi'ah uprising in the south in 1991. "Many of those who escaped and were punished were Shi'ahs in Basra who tried to escape to Iran," the head of the Iraqi National Organisation for Human Rights (INOHR), Nabil Ibrahim Kazim, told IRIN in Iraq. Kazim was a political refugee in Jordan and returned to Iraq last April to head the INOHR's Basra office. He started collecting statistics from different hospitals in Basra and found that there were around 460 cases of mutilation in the southern city alone. The most common reason for mutilation was desertion, but occasionally also some doctors who had refused to carry out such operations. MOST VICTIMS IN THE SOUTH According to the INOHR, most of those who had been subjected to mutilation were in southern Iraq. About 150 were living in the other southern cities of Al-Nasiriyah and Al-Amarah, and some 75 in the capital, Baghdad. "It was common in the Iraqi army to put soldiers from Basra in the front line during the wars," Kazim explained. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International (AI) have called for the victims to be compensated. "Mutilation was a very big problem, and was at its peak in 1994 when the decree was passed, and did create an outcry at that time, but it was too late and hundreds of people were mutilated before it was stopped," a researcher on Iraq for Amnesty, Said Boumedouha, told IRIN from London. "I have met some people who have been mutilated and they are suffering from terrible psychological effects," he added. Boumedouha explained that the Iraqi Governing Council had set up two committees to deal with such cases. "It will be a long process to try those responsible, as there have been massive violations," he maintained. The victims of such atrocities have to face daily life with their mutilations. Abd al-Amir's national identity card is living proof. "Obvious mutilation: two ears are cut off," it says. He explained that those who were mutilated by the ousted regime like him were not allowed to obtain a passport and forbidden from leaving the country. HELP MAY BE AT HAND "When I was in prison, I heard news about human rights organisations welcoming people like us, and that they were there to help us. But we were criminalised by the Ba'thists as criminals, so when I escaped to Kuwait, I could not to enter Iraq again as I would have been arrested," he asserted. According to Kazim, although the 1994 law lasted only for a month, and an amnesty was announced because it was drawing severe criticism from international human rights groups, the mutilations continued. Today, many of those tortured are facing difficulties in adjusting back into society, are unemployed and in need of compensation and help. Suwaylam said he would like to have plastic surgery. "We heard about a popular doctor in Baghdad who is a good plastic surgeon, but he asks for 2 million dinars [US $1,000]," he said. Although Baghdad has fewer cases of mutilated people, a newly formed association for tattooed people and those who have had their tongues cut off has been established there to reclaim their rights and ask for compensation.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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