CPTnet
July 27, 2004
IRAQ UPDATE: July 7-11, 2004

Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Anita David and Greg Rollins went to Kerbala to interview the wife of an
Iraqi man detained by U.S. soldiers in Camp Bucca in the south of Iraq. On
the way home from Kerbala, they saw two burnt-out oil tankers on the highway
that had not been there in the morning.

Sheila Provencher and Anne Montgomery escorted an Iraqi family from Sadr
City whose brother U.S. Soldiers ashot on April 9, 2004. The CPTers took
them to the Green Zone--the area in Baghdad used as headquarters by the
Iraqi government and Multinational Forces. When they arrived at the Green
Zone, U.S. soldiers denied the Iraqi family entry because none of them
brought ID. The CPTers gave the family instructions on where to apply for
compensation in Sadr City and how to keep CPT informed on the process.

While at the entrance to the Green Zone, Provencher and Montgomery heard
several explosions.

Thursday, July 8, 2004
Rollins and Provencher tried to go to the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights,
but Iraqi National Guards (ING) and U.S. soldiers had closed off the
neighborhood around the office. One Iraqi guard said an important U.S.
delegation was visiting the ministry.

In a compensation case CPT has been following closely, an Iraqi woman, whose
ten-year-old son had been caught in crossfire on May 2003, told CPT the
Multinational Forces turned her down to receive compensation for her son.
The Multinational Forces said she did not have enough witnesses. The woman
told CPT she found more witnesses and she would reapply.

Provencher talked on the phone with the mother of a young Iraqi man who had
been in jail under the charge of having a "bad father." On May 26, 2004,
U.S. soldiers raided the family home and shot and wounded the father before
they arrested him along with the son. The mother said U.S. forces had just
released her son from prison, but her husband was still in Abu Ghraib.

Friday, July 9, 2004
At 4:30 am, several CPTers woke to the sound of gunfire in the neighborhood.
The shooting lasted for a couple of minutes before it ended.

At 9:35 am, the team heard explosions. The team later learned that militants
fired mortars at a hotel a mile away.

Saturday, July 10, 2004
At 4:00 am, several team members heard shooting.

The team went to the Aadhumiyah neighborhood of Baghdad to interview two
released Iraqi detainees, and the family of a mentally handicapped detainee
still in prison. One of the released men said U.S. soldiers beat him and his
two brothers while they were detained. The other man said U.S. forces
detained him for eleven months before they released him without charges.
Both men stated that the U.S. authorities forced them to sign statements
that they would give up their rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.

The father of the mentally handicapped detainee said he worried about his
son. He visited his son in Abu Ghraib recently and said the doctors there
have treated his son for a gunshot wound and the son appears to be in good
shape. The authorities have chraged the son with firing a rocket-propelled
grenade at U.S. forces. The father said his son did not commit the attack;
he was swimming in the river near the attack when it happened.

Sunday, July 11, 2004
A friend of the team's came over to tell them his five-year-old brother had
died from shrapnel wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device in
Tahrir Square while he and his brother were working there.