Torture complaint challenges Iraq constitution

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEO537406.htm

Torture complaint challenges Iraq constitution
15 Aug 2005 11:10:19 GMT

BAGHDAD, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Iraq's draft constitution will enshrine democracy, its framers and their U.S. sponsors say; but allegations on Monday of torture in prisons raised troubling questions over human rights in the new Iraq.

In a video released by a senior local government official, 20 men who said they were held as suspected insurgents by Interior Ministry forces displayed welts and bruises and alleged they were beaten and given electric shocks among other tortures.

Just as a 1990 charter imposed by ousted President Saddam Hussein promised equal rights and the rule of law, but did not stop genocidal killing and torture, so the value of the constitution that may be presented on Monday will lie in how far fine words translate into reality in an Iraq riven with sectarian and ethnic strife.

It was not possible to verify the allegations endorsed by Awf Rahoumi, a deputy governor of Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, where sectarian tensions between once dominant Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ite Muslims have been running high.

[wli]

1. interesting that Saddam passed that 1 yr. before Bush I invaded n/t

[Barrett808]

2. kick

[Supersedeas]

3. nothing to see here....move right along