Iraq Media Watch: Amnesty reviewed

The Iraqi media has hailed Saddam Hussein for his magnanimity and greatness after he announced a general amnesty for prisoners.

The amnesty signals a new stage in the life of all Iraqis, especially those who dissociated themselves from the national march

Iraqi TV

However, Arab and Islamic media outside Iraq reveal a different aspect of Saddam's initiative which paints a dark and forbidding picture of the fate of prisoners in Iraqi jails, and suggests the regime is still holding many in desperate conditions.

Iraqi TV acknowledges that there was no freedom for those convicted of "the crimes of spying for the Zionist entity [Israel] and United States", although it fails to give numbers.

However, it is glowing in its praise of Saddam "who gave his faithful people yet another occasion to celebrate".

Reconciliation?

"The amnesty signals a new stage in the life of all Iraqis, especially those who dissociated themselves from the national march and preferred to be watchers from afar," said Iraqi TV.

"They are now urgently called upon to make up their minds and join the beloved homeland and its march toward construction, prosperity, and progress."

Many would see the TV's comment that the amnesty will "consolidate the cohesion of the internal front against all forces hostile to Iraq" as coming closer to the true reason for its promulgation.

The government-owned Al-Jumhuriyah newspaper spoke of Saddam Hussein's "brave and historic" decision to grant the amnesty. Contradicting the TV, it describes Iraq as "the only country in the world where there are no prisoners or detainees for any reason whatsoever".

A commentator in Al-Iraq describes the amnesty as Saddam's "Crown of Justice".

A report in Jordan's Al-Arab al-Yawm quotes a left-wing Iraqi writer and politician, Abd-al-Amir al-Rikabi as confirming reports Baghdad is holding secret negotiations with opposition figures abroad over their return and participation in a "national coalition government" aimed at achieving "democratic transformation in Iraq".

There were a very large number of prisoners with us who were not released

Kurdish prisoner Raid Qadir Mintik

Mr Al-Rikabi says although the opposition figures represented "a wide intellectual and political spectrum", they are "all committed to national mobilization against US threats".

He describes the amnesty as "an unprecedented event", adding that the referendum which gave Saddam seven more years as president could form the basis for political change, Al-Arab al-Yawm adds.

Torture and brutality

A harrowing account of life in an Iraqi prison comes in an interview with a Kurd who was freed in September after eight years, and who questions the scope of the amnesty.

Raid Qadir Mintik told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat: "When the decision was announced, a committee was formed and it decided who would be released and who would not. There were a very large number of prisoners with us who were not released because they were political prisoners."

He spoke of "the barbaric methods of torture" and told of one person who had eight fingers cut off with a sword for stealing a gun. When it was discovered he was innocent, he was paid the equivalent of $10 in compensation.

Mr Mintik further describes that fate of a 15-year old Kurdish youth who died in agony after being refused treatment for asthma.

The youth's father, who was also imprisoned, was ordered to collect the body without being told it was his son. When he realised, he had a heart attack and died.

They were executing between three and eight people daily

Raid Qadir Mintik

He says executions went on inside the prison daily, except Thursdays and Fridays.

"They were executing between three and eight people daily in the Public Security Directorate building and many of us wondered if anybody in the country remained alive," he says.

The Saudi Arabian paper Ukaz condemns Iraq for "failing to confirm its good intentions by releasing all of the Saudi citizens and detainees who have been suffering under the torment of Iraqi prisons for more than 12 years".

This came, the paper continues, "after the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] stood with Iraq heart and soul in order to prevent the American military strike against it."

It calls on Iraq "not to overlook the plight of the Arab prisoners in general, and the Saudi prisoners in particular. They should all be released".

Iran's reformist daily Etemaad says the amnesty comes too late.

Prisoners are liquidated all the time - the number of missing people in Iraq is the highest in the world

Opposition leader Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim

"If by freeing its prisoners, Saddam Hussein's government has sought to buy itself an opportunity, the attempt at reconciling his nation and legitimizing his government has come too late. Dictators only think about opportunities once they have lost them."

'Thousands missing'

Interviewed by the Gulf paper Al-Khalij, the head of the opposition Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, says thousands of prisoners are unaccounted for.

"The regime has issued the decision for media and propaganda purposes. We made contacts inside Iraq and found that thousands of academic and social figures have not been released."

He says the fate of tens of thousands of others is unknown.

"Prisoners are liquidated all the time, without informing their families. There are no real figures about who is still in prison and who is missing. The number of missing people in Iraq is the highest in the world."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.