Ex-Iraqi Official's Family Held

Ex-Iraqi Official's Family Held

By Mohamad Bazzi
MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

Baghdad, Iraq -- The arrests of the wife and daughter of a former Saddam Hussein deputy violate international law and raise questions about the United States' ability to highlight human rights abuses by other countries, experts and rights monitors say.

U.S. forces detained Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri's relatives in a Nov. 26 raid in the central Iraqi city of Samarra. A longtime Hussein aide, al-Douri has been blamed for organizing guerrilla attacks on U.S. troops and the arrests seemed intended to pressure al-Douri into surrendering or to gather information that might lead to his capture. Human rights groups condemned the detentions, saying family members should not be used as "bargaining chips" in the hunt for Iraqi fugitives.

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But a number of experts say there is no basis in international law for such detentions and that they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees rights for people under occupation and outlines the responsibilities of the occupying power. "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed," the convention says. "Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."

Arresting a relative to get information on the whereabouts of a wanted person, or to put pressure on the fugitive to turn himself in, also violates the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, said John Quigley, an international law professor at Ohio State University. "Under human rights law, there is a principle that arrest cannot be arbitrary," he said.

more: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-iraq1208,0,7325261.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

"A spokeman for the Fourth Infantry Division, which carried out the arrests, described the detentions as 'similar to those of a material witness' who is held for questioning.

But...experts say there is no basis in international law for such detentions and that they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which gurantees rights for people under occupation and outlines the responsibilties of the occupying power.

'No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally commited', the convention says."

Our original arrest, search and seizure laws as well as habeas corpus "you have the body" recourse stem from actions of the British Army among the American civilian population in the 1700's.

These tenets are basic to our Constitution and are reflected in the Geneva Convention.

Oh yeah, arrest means you are detained under suspicion of a crime and will be charged or released. You don't arrest witnesses. You don't arrest the family.

If this is war, as we've been told, we are bound to abide by the Geneva Convention.

"Can we get away with it?"

That is it. That is ALL. Boil down a Great and Vast Old Republic to it's Imperial beginnings and that's what you have left in Bush-Occupied Imperial Amerika.

could "arrest" Barbara Bush? I think we are setting a very scary precedent.

For some reason, I am thinking of Harrsion Ford in the movie where he is the president and his family is taken hostage on an airplane.

is setting a lot of dangerous precedents, which are likely to cause U.S. citizens grief in years to come. There are valid reasons for the detaining of relatives being against the law. Bush has already caused damage with his "preemptive" war stance, and his actions will be used as an excuse in the future for other countries to adopt his tactics.

This is without question the most damaging, immoral, bloodthirsty gang who have ever trampled on human rights here and abroad. We have got to get them out in 2004; our future as a nation any of us would want to live in is at stake.

no matter what the world thinks, no matter what human rights organizations say, no matter what international law, the UN, or the Geneva Convention say.

If I'm not mistaken, the last one to act in this manner was Adolph Hilter.

,...all around,...

YIKES!!!

Of why the U.S. was rightfully kicked off the U.N.'s Human Rights Committee.

Nevertheless, I am glad to see that the issue is being kept before the public. This should have been all over the media last week.