Abu Gharib, prison

One of the prisons to keep Iranian captives

Abu Gharib was the one of the scariest prisons which was founded by English contractors in 19060`s. This prison is located 32 kilometers west of Baghdad, next to the Abu Ghraib highway and near a neighborhood of the same name, with an area of approximately 280 acres. This prison in Iraq was synonymous with keeping and torturing the political opponents of the Baath regime especially Shiites and Kurds. This prison won an international fame after the publication of a book by Simon Hersh, a famous American writer containing pictures of the torture of Iraqis by American soldiers.

Appearance

Abu Ghraib prison had a large yard, with facilities of very poor conditions and it was far from habitable for humans. According to the narratives of many prisoners released from this prison, psychologically destructive conditions, unfavorable health conditions, food problems, tortures and numerous diseases were the prominent characteristics of this place.

Abu Ghraib prison had 24 guard towers with high fully protected walls , which consisted of two secret and non-secret sections. In the secret part of the prison, important political prisoners (Shiites) were generally kept and were subjected to torture. This prison had no visitors and was under the supervision of Iraqi intelligence. Many of its rooms were small, sometimes accommodating 40 people. Some claims indicate that in this prison, some prisoners were subjected to chemical and biological weapons

The cells of Abu Ghraib prison were parallel on the sides of a long corridor, the doors of which were made of mesh bars, and the prisoners were kept there without any basic facilities and in an inhuman condition. They did not have the right and possibility to communicate with other cells (interview with Parviz Hatmian, 6/22/1397). This situation deeply terrorized the prisoners, and the Iraqis were also careful to get the necessary confessions from the prisoners of this prison.

The Abu Gharib prison and Iranian prisoners

During the war some of the Iranian prisoners were kept in a very bad situation and mentioned that repeatedly in their diaries. The hidden dungeons of this prison, the uncertain destiny of the prisoners, the dominant air of violence and relentless tortures were some of the conditions, the prisoners had to grapple with. Iranian prisoners were kept secretly and their presence in the Iraqi prisons was kept dark from the Red Cross representatives for a decade, thereby they had hoped to score off points from Iran`s government. Most of the Iranian prisoners included prominent people, pilots and army officers who were separated from other Iraqi and Arab prisoners and were kept in a "secret" section. Hot summers and cold winters, lack of clothes, detergents, poor condition of sanitary systems, having no right to take the fresh air, deplorable condition of food, invasion of insects and contagion of diseases among prisoners in their wake… etc. were the prominent features of this prison. Colonel Babajani, one of the captive pilots in this prison, says:

"I did not see the sun or the moon in Abu Ghraib prison for a year and a half." 58 people [pilots] were imprisoned in a very small cell in Abu Ghraib prison; If we wanted to sleep all together, we couldn't and several people had to stand and then change their places." (https://azadeganirankhabar.ir)

Hossein Lashkari, who is the most famous Iranian prisoner of this prison, describes the conditions of the prison as follows in his memoirs:

"In many cases, the use of open air was also prohibited for the prisoners, and the cells were so horribly stuffy that prisoners almost gasped for breath. This had weakened their bodies and predisposed them to all sorts of disease. There was almost no air circulation and those of prisoners suffering from pulmonary problems sometimes had to lie down close to the door in the hope of taking some fresh air blowing underneath the door.

The sanitary conditions of the prison were very poor, and the prisoners' blankets were smeared with blood and pus as they were directly brought from hospitals. No one in this prison had more than one set of clothes and they were infested with bugs such as fleas, ticks and lice.

Small cells in that prison had dimensions of 3 x 4 meters with the capacity only for 4 or 5 people, and yet, Iraqis huddled 20 to 30 captives by force in such cells. There was no space to sleep and there was moist. The dust on the floor exposed to humidity had turned into mud and slime. The Iraqis gave one bucket of water for 20 people to share and that would leave only one glass of water for each captive.

Evidently, Abu Gharib was one of the most formidable, secret, and appalling prisons where human rights were blatantly violated. Prisoners’ death was normal and even the toughest guys could not hope to live through its dangers and hardships. All the same, in this environment Iranian prisoners persevered and relied on spiritual issues, and carried out their cultural-spiritual programs and obtained information from outside this prison by communicating in very difficult ways.

Communication

The cells used by some of the Iranian prisoners in Abu Ghraib had open doors with fences that could find out what was going on in the opposite cells. Usually, the most important time of communication was during the breaktime, when the prisoners were taken out of the cells to use the WCs and for sanitary issues, and they saw each other in the prison corridors. Of course, all the prisoners were not always kept in the same situation, but some of them were kept in a very secret manner, and some were kept in solitary confinements in which case reaching them would become truly difficult The prisoners of this prison, like other prisons and camps where prisoners were kept apart or in solitary confinements, resorted to Morse code as a means of communication. In this way, in Abu Ghraib prison, prisoners transmitted news about the war and the outside world, which they sometimes got from Iraqi soldiers to the underground and more remote cells.

Radio was another device used in Abu Gharib prison. This device was obtained from Iraqi soldiers with much difficulty and kept like a treasure. In the memories of martyr Lashkari, it is mentioned that they dismantled the radio and distributed the pieces among themselves, so that they could reassemble the radio at the first opportunity and listen to the news and even with batteries were dead, they made new ones using the juice extracted from the pomegranate skin.

Famous Iranian captives

Most of Iranian prisoners in Abu Gharib prison were the people whose identities the Iraqi government wanted to conceal so that in the continuation of the war and the negotiations after that, they could score off points from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Among these people, we can mention 58 Iranian pilots such as the Departed Hossein Lashkari, Parviz Hatmian, Colonel Mohammad Ibrahim Babajani, et al. Also, some other prominent political figures such as Dr. Seyed Abbas Paknejad, Dr. Kohpayeh, Dr. Azimi, Dr. Khaleghi and the driver of Shahid Tondguyan were imprisoned in there.

The imprisonment time varied from one prisoner to another. Usually Iranian prisoners were moved to that prison periodically and after a period of several months to several years, were transferred to another secret prison like Al-Rashid or other camps.