Prisons’ overcrowding rate reaches 300%, Iraqi Justice Ministry says
Abu Ghraib prison located 32 kilometers west of Baghdad. Photo: AFP
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced on Saturday that the overcrowding rate in government prisons reached 300 percent.
The spokesperson of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, Kamel Amin, said that the number of prisoners reached 60,000, while the capacity of prisons does not exceed 25.000, Al-Rafidain TV reported.
Amin also indicated that it is difficult to control this big number of prisoners.
Iraqi War Crimes Documentation Center (IWDC) revealed that Iraqi authorities detained tens of thousands of people in inhumane conditions, and placed them in overcrowded and unsanitary cells for several years, out of revenge and sectarian motives, according to a report issued by the center.
Earlier, a member of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, Nissan Abdul-Ridha Al-Zayer, revealed that the women’s prison in Baghdad has four times its capacity for women convicted of various crimes, Baghdad Today reported.
There are about 664 convicts in each prison, equivalent to more than 2,500 inmates on charges of terrorism, drugs, prostitution, and begging, Al-Zayer said following her visit to the women’s prison in Baghdad, which includes several dormitories each accommodating about 190 inmates.
Al-Zayer denounced the situation as it violates human rights, adding that the majority of inmates is from foreign families belonging to the terrorist group of ISIS.
The Iraqi lawmaker indicated that the transfer of foreign inmates with their children to their countries of origin is delayed after rulings by the Iraqi judiciary were issued.