A surge in arrests is raising new questions about

5
C M Y K
9
5
Iraq
OUT OF ACTION: A
suspected insurgent
in American custody
A surge in arrests is raising new questions about Iraqi
jails—and heightening concerns among U.S. officials.
BY BABAK DEHGHANPISHEH
bdul rahman shimmari
was getting ready for bed one
night last March when the cops
kicked in his door. They jabbed
him with AK-47s and punched
him in the face as he cried out to his kids.
Within minutes, Shimmari and his teenage
son had been slapped into plastic handcuffs
and thrown into the back of a police pickup.
As the truck sped away, one of the Iraqi policemen shouted, “You Sunni dogs!”
Two days later, Shimmari, a Baghdad
college professor who asked that his real
A
32
N E W S W E E K M AY 2 1 , 2 0 0 7
Folio Mag
Pg
Vol MO
032
BG
U
D
name not be used for his safety, was transferred to Saddam Hussein’s former military-intelligence headquarters, now the
Edala prison. There, Shimmari claims, he
both witnessed and was subjected to beatings by guards. Independent human-rights
monitors who have interviewed other prisoners at the jail recount similar tales. “This
was a dark place,” says Shimmari, choking
up at the memory.
This is the other side of the surge: as
thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops flood
Baghdad’s neighborhoods, the jails are also
filling up. According to figures from the
1
another new layout!!!!!! fri 3:30pm
layout changed to fit story. fri 6pm
Ministry of Human Rights, the number of
Iraqis detained nationwide from the end of
January until the end of March—a period
that includes the first six weeks of the new
Baghdad security plan—jumped by approximately 7,000 to 37,641. U.S. forces swept
up 2,000 prisoners a month in March and
April, almost twice the average from the second half of last year. Iraqi arrest numbers
are roughly equivalent. Some of these detainees are falling into a kind of legal limbo,
held for weeks without a hearing. Others
are allegedly suffering even worse fates. The
top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David
Petraeus, is worried enough that he issued
an open letter to American advisers paired
up with Iraqi units last week: “It is very important that we never turn a blind eye to
abuses, thinking that what Iraqis do with
their own detainees is ‘Iraqi business’.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANFUNG DENNIS FOR NEWSWEEK
new layout fri 1pm please fix everything. new hed size pullquote added please fix credits rebudget.
WPN
PRISON BLUES