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Banned
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"Uday's physical ailments seemed to heighten his sadistic tendencies. According to his chief bodyguard, when Uday learned that one of his close comrades, who knew of his many misdeeds, was planning to leave Iraq, he invited him to his 37th-birthday party and had him arrested. An eyewitness at the prison where the man was held says members of the Fedayeen grabbed his tongue with pliers and sliced it off with a scalpel so he could not talk. A maid who cleaned one of Uday's houses says she once saw him lop off the ear of one of his guards and then use a welder's torch on his face."
-- Time, May 25, 2003
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"Thousands of people are missing in Iraq, victims of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, but a more visible legacy are the parts that are missing from people who survived. Missing eyes, ears, toenails and tongues mark those who fell into the hands of Mr. Hussein's powerful security services."
-- The New York Times, April 24, 2003
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"Farris Salman is one of the last victims of Mr. Hussein's rule. His speech is slurred because he is missing part of his tongue. Black-hooded paramilitary troops, the Fedayeen Saddam, run by Mr. Hussein's eldest son, Uday, pulled it out of his mouth with pliers last month, he said, and sliced it off with a box cutter. They made his family and dozens of his neighbors watch.
"...Salman was blindfolded and bundled into a van. Residents of his neighborhood say the van arrived in the afternoon with an escort of seven trucks carrying more than a hundred black-uniformed fedayeen wearing black masks that only showed their eyes. They rounded up neighbors for what was billed as a rally; Mr. Salman's mother was ordered to bring a picture of Mr. Hussein. Two men held Mr. Salman's arms and head steady, and pointed a gun to his temple. Another man with a video camera recorded the scene. 'I was standing and they told me to stick my tongue out or they would shoot me, and so I did. It was too quick to be painful but there was a lot of blood.' The fedayeen stuffed his mouth with cotton and took him to a local hospital, where he got five stitches, no painkiller and was returned to prison."
-- The New York Times, April 24, 2003
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"... Anwar Abdul Razak, remembers when a surgeon kissed him on each cheek, said he was sorry and cut his ears off. Razak, then 21 years old, had been swept up during one of Saddam Hussein's periodic crackdowns on deserters from the Army. Razak says he was innocently on leave at the time, but no matter; he had been seized by some Baath Party members who earned bounties for catching Army deserters. At Basra Hospital, Razak's ears were sliced off without painkillers. He said he was thrown into jail with 750 men, all with bloody stumps where their ears had been. 'They called us Abu [Arabic for father] Earless,' recalls Razak, whose fiancee left him because of his disfigurement.
"No one is sure how many men were mutilated during that particular spasm of terror, but from May 17 to 19, 1994, all the available surgeons worked shifts at all of Basra's major hospitals, lopping off ears. (One doctor who refused was shot.) Today, Dr. Jinan al-Sabagh, an administrator at Basra Teaching Hospital, insists that the victims numbered only '70 or 80,' but he'd prefer not to talk about it. He says the ear-chopping stopped before his own surgery rotation came up. 'I want to forget about all this. I vowed I would never do it. I said I am a surgeon, not a butcher....'"
-- Newsweek, April 28, 2003
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"He described how, clad in black garb that covered all but his eyes, he had often meted out sentences in the street, in front of a victim's family and horrified onlookers. Guarded by armed colleagues, he used to tie up and blindfold the accused. One of his men held the detainee's head in a firm grip. Another forced open the mouth.
"Ali would then draw out a pair of pliers and a sharp knife. Gripping the tongue with pliers, he would slice it up with the knife, tossing severed pieces into the street. "'Those punished were too terrified to move, even though they knew I was about to chop off their tongue,' said Ali in his matter-of-fact voice. 'They would just stand there, often praying and calling out for Saddam and Allah to spare them. By then it was too late.
"'I would read them out the verdict and cut off their tongue without any form of anaesthetic. There was always a lot of blood. Some offenders passed out. Others screamed in pain. They would then be given basic medical assistance in an ambulance which would always come with us on such punishment runs. Then they would be thrown in jail.'"
-- Fedayeen Saddam member interviewed in The Sunday Times (London), April 20, 2003
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"Dr. Jinan Al Sabagh, a surgeon at Basra's Teaching Hospital, remembers the day in 1994 when the Baath Party came to the hospital with groups of men who were said to be deserters. The doctors were told to slice off the men's ears.
"'It was definitely obligatory,' said Al Sabagh, a gentle man in his 60s who seemed close to tears as he struggled to describe what happened those three days. 'If you didn't, you would have the same thing done to you.
"'They made four groups of doctors, one for each day,' Al Sabagh explained. "I was in the fourth group. One doctor here refused and they said if you didn't do it we will do the same to you. He did it.'"
-- Newsday, April 21, 2003
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"Ferass Adnan is a 23-year-old trader who speaks with difficulty these days now that part of his tongue is missing. Some months ago he got into a fight in a market in northern Baghdad and was overheard insulting Saddam as the 'son of a dog'. A policeman tried to arrest him, but Adnan fled.
"Within hours, Iraqi secret police agents arrived at Adnan's home and, failing to find him, took away his uncle, brother, and two cousins. They were thrown in jail and tortured with electric shocks.
"It was only a matter of days before the regime's ubiquitous security spies caught up with Adnan in the suburbs of Baghdad. He was jailed and then, on March 5, turned over to the specialists of Ali's punishment squad. Adnan was taken back to his father's home in north Baghdad, where his entire family was ordered to gather outside the local coffee house.
"'His hands were tied and his eyes blindfolded,' the young man's father, Adnan Duleimi, recalled last week. 'I had not seen my son since they had arrested him. I tried to pay for his release. I lost all my savings, handing everything I had to corrupt security officers who promised to help but only took my money. There was nothing I could do. I had to watch in silence as they took a knife to my son's tongue. Had I said a word we would all have been killed.'"
-- The Sunday Times (London), April 20, 2003
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"One of Ali's fellow fedayeen lost his tongue simply for repeating how he had heard of a man who had accused Uday of bringing shame on the Iraqi people for dressing in multi-coloured shirts – which, according to the critic, made him look like a woman.
"'There was no mild form of criticism when it came to Saddam, Uday or the regime,' said Ali. 'Any critical comment, even to say that the president looked tired in a speech, was enough to risk having one's tongue cut off by us.'"
-- Interview with a member of the Fedayeen Saddam in The Sunday Times (London), April 20, 2003
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"Kadhim Sabbit al-Datajji, 61, a resident of the poor Shiite neighborhood known as Saddam City under Mr. Hussein, said his trouble began when the eldest of his seven sons became old enough to join the Baath Party, but did not. 'Some Baathists in the neighborhood began asking why no one in my family was a party member and saying that with so many children, my family could cause trouble,' he said. 'They asked, "Why don't you or your sons join? We think you are in an opposition party."'
"He now has a walleyed stare to show for eight years in prison. He is quick to pop out his glass eye for a visitor - and to tell of how he lost the real one to torture."
-- The New York Times, April 24, 2003
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"Doctors gave him an injection and he lost consciousness, he said. When he awoke, the right side of his head was wrapped in bandages. It was Sept. 15, 1994. 'I started crying,' Mr. Ghanem said. 'I felt crippled. I felt oppressed. I hated Saddam with all of my heart, but I didn't know what to do.'
"He was sent to prison where he said he saw hundreds of others missing one ear. Many, like Mr. Ghanem, had inflamed wounds.
"His mother came every Friday, selling off household appliances to buy painkillers and antibiotics for her son. Others were less fortunate. Mr. Ghanem described a medieval scene in which delirious and dying inmates lay on the prison's dirt floor screaming from pain. 'The right side of some of the men's heads were puffed up like red balloons,' he said. Two of his friends died from infections.
"'Saddam, God curse him, treated my son like an animal,' said Mr. Ghanem's weeping mother. 'Only animals have their ears cut off.'"
-- The New York Times, April 24, 2003
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