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Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison (Arabic: سجن أبو غريب, romanized: Sijn Abū Ghurayb) was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of Baghdad. It became internationally known as a place where Saddam Hussein's government tortured and executed dissidents, and later as the site of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal where the United States military's torture of Iraqi detainees was revealed in a series of photographs published in worldwide news media.
Abu Ghraib gained international attention in 2003 following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the torture and abuse of detainees committed by guards in part of the complex operated by Coalition forces was exposed.
Under Saddam's Ba'ath government, it was known as Abu Ghraib Prison and had a reputation as a place of torture and some of the worst cases of torture in the modern world. It was sometimes referred to in the Western media as "Saddam's Torture Central". The prison was renamed after United States forces expelled the former Iraqi government, which had called it the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility (BCCF) or Baghdad Central Correctional Facility. In May of 2004, Camp Avalanche, a tent camp on the grounds of Abu Ghraib for security detainees, changed its name to Camp Redemption at the request of a governing council member.
In 2006, the United States transferred complete control of Abu Ghraib to the federal government of Iraq, and was reopened in 2009 as Baghdad Central Prison (Arabic: سجن بغداد المركزي Sijn Baġdād al-Markizī). However, due to security concerns during the War in Iraq, it closed in 2014. Since all of the 2,400 inmates were transferred to other high-security prisons, the prison complex is currently vacant, and Saddam-era mass graves have been uncovered at the site.
The prison was built by Western contractors in the 1960s. The size of a small town, the prison was divided into five different compounds. Under the government of Saddam Hussein the facility was under the control of the Directorate of General Security (Al-Amn al-Amm) and was the site of the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners—up to 4,000 prisoners are thought to have been executed there in 1984 alone. During the 1990s human rights organization Amnesty International documented repeated events where as many as several hundred inmates were executed in a single episode. These included hundreds executed in November 1996, and several hundred members of the Shi'a denomination killed in 1998 and 2001. Amnesty reported that it could not produce a complete picture of events at the prison due to government secrecy. It was also the reputed location of Saddam Hussein's alleged shredder.
The section for political inmates of Abu Ghraib was divided into "open" and "closed" wings. The closed wing housed only Shi'ites. They were not allowed visitors or any outside contact.
Coalition prisoners were held and tortured in Abu Ghraib during the Gulf War, including the British Special Air Service patrol Bravo Two Zero."
The prison held as many as 15,000 inmates in 2001. In 2002, Saddam Hussein's government began an expansion project to add six new cellblocks to the prison.[better source needed] In October 2002, he gave amnesty to most prisoners in Iraq. After the prisoners were released and the prison was left empty, it was vandalized and looted.[citation needed] Almost all of the documents relating to prisoners were piled and burnt inside of prison offices and cells, leading to extensive structural damage.
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Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison (Arabic: سجن أبو غريب, romanized: Sijn Abū Ghurayb) was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of Baghdad. It became internationally known as a place where Saddam Hussein's government tortured and executed dissidents, and later as the site of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal where the United States military's torture of Iraqi detainees was revealed in a series of photographs published in worldwide news media.
Abu Ghraib gained international attention in 2003 following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the torture and abuse of detainees committed by guards in part of the complex operated by Coalition forces was exposed.
Under Saddam's Ba'ath government, it was known as Abu Ghraib Prison and had a reputation as a place of torture and some of the worst cases of torture in the modern world. It was sometimes referred to in the Western media as "Saddam's Torture Central". The prison was renamed after United States forces expelled the former Iraqi government, which had called it the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility (BCCF) or Baghdad Central Correctional Facility. In May of 2004, Camp Avalanche, a tent camp on the grounds of Abu Ghraib for security detainees, changed its name to Camp Redemption at the request of a governing council member.
In 2006, the United States transferred complete control of Abu Ghraib to the federal government of Iraq, and was reopened in 2009 as Baghdad Central Prison (Arabic: سجن بغداد المركزي Sijn Baġdād al-Markizī). However, due to security concerns during the War in Iraq, it closed in 2014. Since all of the 2,400 inmates were transferred to other high-security prisons, the prison complex is currently vacant, and Saddam-era mass graves have been uncovered at the site.
The prison was built by Western contractors in the 1960s. The size of a small town, the prison was divided into five different compounds. Under the government of Saddam Hussein the facility was under the control of the Directorate of General Security (Al-Amn al-Amm) and was the site of the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners—up to 4,000 prisoners are thought to have been executed there in 1984 alone. During the 1990s human rights organization Amnesty International documented repeated events where as many as several hundred inmates were executed in a single episode. These included hundreds executed in November 1996, and several hundred members of the Shi'a denomination killed in 1998 and 2001. Amnesty reported that it could not produce a complete picture of events at the prison due to government secrecy. It was also the reputed location of Saddam Hussein's alleged shredder.
The section for political inmates of Abu Ghraib was divided into "open" and "closed" wings. The closed wing housed only Shi'ites. They were not allowed visitors or any outside contact.
Coalition prisoners were held and tortured in Abu Ghraib during the Gulf War, including the British Special Air Service patrol Bravo Two Zero."
The prison held as many as 15,000 inmates in 2001. In 2002, Saddam Hussein's government began an expansion project to add six new cellblocks to the prison.[better source needed] In October 2002, he gave amnesty to most prisoners in Iraq. After the prisoners were released and the prison was left empty, it was vandalized and looted.[citation needed] Almost all of the documents relating to prisoners were piled and burnt inside of prison offices and cells, leading to extensive structural damage.