Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I was Saddam's prisoner

Extracts from different sections of the book: 'I was Saddam's Prisoner' by Abu Jameel.

....The poet once came back from the Muhqqiq badly shaken. His face red from the slaps and blows, his front tooth broken. The pyjama showed blood, for he had been mercilessly kicked in his testicles. In an hour and a half of incessant questioning, no respite was given to him as various modes of punishment were meted out one after the other. He was given a shock treatment, which sent him flying from the chair like fish out of water, tottering to the floor semi-conscious. All this because he was asked to recite few verses of his own to amuse the Muhqqiq. Call it an audacity or foolhardiness, he chose some of the most provoking lines from his notes, the pointed spikes against the inhuman Ba’thist regime, and recited them with candour that was least expected. The Muhaqqiq flew with rage and then hell broke loose.....

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......Here, I met Yusuf, a Syrian Christian who had come to wash his wounds. His chastisement had been the most severe, his wounds most unsightly. Afraid of making any expression by words, lest an eavesdropper overheard me, I made a sympathetic gesture with my eyes to show my feelings. Making a similar gesture, he said: "They say I am a spy, while in fact I am not. I am simple truck driver, regularly plying between Kuwait and Iraq borders. They insist that I must confess. How can I, if I am innocent? I would not, even if they gored my eyes, removing them out of the sockets."


This was the only punishment he could now envisage, because he had undergone every other kind. In Ghurfa Amaliyyat, Yusuf had been lashed all over the body till he bled profusely and then given a respite for two days. A doctor usually stood by with a card in his hand. When he mutely showed the red ace, it meant danger. It was a signal conveying to the tormentor that the victim had had enough, and would die if punished further. Yusuf could not sleep on Bataniya, because the roughly woven blankets stuck to the raw flesh, and pricked him like needles. When he sat, the loose wool shreds would pull the wounds. If he slept on the bare floor, the cold surface rendered him uncomfortable.

After two restless days, Yusuf went to Muhaqqiq again, this time to be treated with electric shocks. With wire ends tied to his fingertips, toes, ear lobes, tongue-tip and glens, enough voltage was generated to send him flying, and down with a thud. Semi-conscious, he was led back to our cell. And exactly after two days, he went downstairs again. His clothes removed, a flame was introduced across his bare chest, down to his stomach and then to the sides of his legs. He came back to the cell in a state, which defies all description. In the following week of respite, his skin peeled off, water, blood and pus oozed out with a revolting stench.

For ten days, he went without any food or water. Rawi, an Egyptian Christian, sat next to him consoling and tending his wounds. An informer within the cell once managed to convey this to Muhaqqiq and Rawi was summoned and warned. Yusuf must be left alone.....

more on source

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm, slight modification in the layout? More like a major makeover! Anywayz, fucked up entry...it's depressing to know what that psycho Saddam did...hope they flog him till death. He definitely deserves a death sentence...but a painful one.

Anywayz, Zidane should've headbutted him in the locker room! They would've won if he hadn't snapped...

*sigh*

So what's up?

Dayaan Swiftheart W said...

Thats incredibly gripping,
I never thought really.