CPTnet
26 July 2006

IRAQ UPDATE: 11-17 July 2006

Tuesday, 11 July

Peggy Gish arrived in Amman from Chicago.

Wednesday, 12 July

Anita David and Maxine Nash arrived in Amman from Chicago.

Thursday, 13 July

Anita David, Maxine Nash, and Peggy Gish met with Jens Martin Mehler,
assistant detention coordinator of the Iraq International Committee on the
Red Cross (ICRC.) He briefed them on what ICRC has been doing in Iraq and
the current status of U.S. prisons there. The ICRC conducted a prison
monitoring training with Iraqi Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs.) He can
collaborate with them and get information about specific cases or conditions
from them, but he cannot give the team information because of the ICRC
mandate. The team spoke of their recent work relating to detainees and
prisons in Iraq.

The team met with three representatives attending a human rights training of
Iraqi NGOs, sponsored by the UN, and the Italian NGO, Un Ponte.

The team visited their landlady from Baghdad in her Amman home. She had
arrived from Baghdad the night before. She told them their Baghdad
neighborhood, Karrada, was fairly safe.

Friday, 14 July

David, Gish and Nash flew from Amman to Sulaimaniya in the Kurdish region of
Iraq. A friend arranged for their visas and hotel, information on local
transportation and location of the closest internet caf