Families: Loved ones abused, forgotten in Kurdish prisons

By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers

"......Dana Ahmed Abdul Rahman is one of hundreds of men who've been tossed into Kurdish jails in what advocates and families charge is a growing human rights crisis. It's in a region that the Bush administration touts as one of Iraq's success stories, where violence is rare and Western investment is rising.

Many of the imprisoned men are affiliated with Islamist political parties, and Kurdish officials say they're being held because of possible terrorist links. But their families and human-rights advocates say they think the arrests are part of a crackdown on Islamists by the region's two most powerful political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The men's families allege that the Kurdish regional government, which touts Iraqi Kurdistan as "the other Iraq," where democracy and freedom flourish and security is assured, is repressive and harsh.....

Read Human Rights Watch's July 2007 report, Torture and Denial of Due Process by the Kurdistan Security Forces:

Caught in the Whirlwind
Torture and Denial of Due Process by the Kurdistan Security Forces