Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2003
Iraq
Cruel and unusual punishments prescribed by the law, including amputations and branding. In 2000, the authorities introduced tongue amputation as a punishment for persons who criticized Saddam Hussein or his family. Soldiers had their ears cut off as punishment for desertion. An "X" was branded on their foreheads so that citizens would not think that they were wounded war veterans. In February 2002, the Minister of the Interior admitted the existence of this practice, but claimed "it had now definitively ceased." Since the fall of the regime, Iraqis with amputated hands, tongues, and ears have presented themselves to CPA authorities confirming these reports of torture and seeking assistance.
There were numerous allegations of politically motivated torture and reports of torture against family members, including the children, of suspected critics of the regime. For instance, a health coordinator for the refugee health program in Yemen claimed in January 2002 that an Iraqi child under her care in Yemen bearing the marks of needle scars on its wrists and forearms had been injected with an agent that caused severe mental retardation in retaliation for the father's suspected opposition to the regime.
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