Incident: Mithal al Hassan detained

[Author's note: There are strong similarities between Mithal Hassan's story of the woman forced to separate human waste, the story of Um Taha, and the story of Selwa's account of her treatment while in detention.]

According to an interview Mithal al Hassan will give in 17 month's time, on this day Hassan was taken by American soldiers from her home and detained at Abu Ghraib for eighty days. In that interview, she will claim that the following occurred:

• Her son, who was taken with her, will be shown to her with deep cuts on his head. He will be told to say goodbye to her.
• She was shown photographs of her children and told she would not see them for 30 years.
• Her hands were tightly bound to the extent that they turned black.
• She was subjected to loud recordings of screaming, temperature extremes.
• She and other detainees were forced to drink from a toilet bowl.

She will also claim to have observed the following incidents concerning other detainees.

• A woman whose hands had been injured due to torture.
• Children being detained, had dogs set upon them, and could be heard screaming from unknown abuses.
• A woman who had been repeatedly hurled against a wall.
• A woman who had been caged for 6 days and was unable to move.
• A woman who had suffered injuries on her knees and elbows from being forced to crawl.
• A woman was forced to separate feces and urine with her bare hands.
• Claims from other detainees concerning rapes, which she refused to go into.

Al Qaeda training manual: lie about torture

Today, the United States Department of Justice will put a translation of an alleged Al Qaeda training manual on their website. Lesson 18 of the training manual contains the following points to follow when a Al Qaeda agent is detained and tried.

1. At the beginning of the trial, once more brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators] before the judge.
2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.
4. The brother has to do his best to know the names of the state security officers, who participated in his torture and mention their names to the judge.
5. Some brothers may tell and may be lured by the state security investigators to testify against the brothers [i.e. affirmation witness], either by not keeping them together in the same prison during the trials, or by letting them talk to the media. In this case,they have to be treated gently, and should be offered good advice, good treatment, and pray that God may guide them.
6. During the trial, the court has to be notified of any mistreatment of the brothers inside the prison.