It also conflicts with statements made by General Muntazer Al-Samerani in interview with the French Press Agency in December 2005. The former supervisor of Iraqi Special Forces revealed the existence of nine secret detention centres as well as the existence of women detention centres in Baghdad in the districts of Kazemiya and Rishad. He added that the women in these centres were routinely subject to torture and rape.

On 20 October 2005, officials of the Kazemiya women's prison confirmed an instance of rape. The UN was refused permission to investigate.

According to a report of the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq, Iraqi police tortured a woman detained in Diwaniya police station since March 2005. The victim recounted that electric shocks were applied to her heels. She was told that her teenage daughter would be raped if she did not supply the information her interrogators wanted.

This is the tip of the iceberg. A report published by the Iraqi National Association for Human Rights on 29 October 2005 found that women held in Interior Ministry detention centres are subject to numerous human rights violations, including "systematic rape by the investigators and to other forms of bodily harm in order to coerce them into making confessions". The report added that prisons fail to meet even the most basic standards of hygiene and that the women were deprived of facilities as fundamental as toilets. The Ministry of Justice has confirmed the accuracy of the report.

In such circumstances, it is insult to injury that female detainees are often forced to sign a paper prior to their release in which they testify to being properly treated. The purpose of this affidavit is to silence them and deprive them of recourse to litigation in the future.

There are no exact figures on the number of jails and detention camps controlled by occupation authorities.

METHODS OF ARREST: Random arrests continue in spite of the so-called "national unity government". Occupation forces are deliberately as brutal as possible when they raid people's homes. They threaten women, "confiscate" money, jewellery and other property, force women to watch as they deliberately humiliate their husbands, sons or fathers, and sometimes order them to take pictures with the cameras of American soldiers.

Most arrests and raids take place after midnight while people are asleep. In some neighbourhoods, women now sleep fully dressed so as not to be caught in their nightgowns if their homes are raided.

Heavy artillery -- including tanks and helicopters -- are sometimes deployed in raids, despite the fact that such a display of force far exceeds the demands of the operation. Slapping, kicking and insulting male members of the household and locking women and children into bathrooms are a matter of course.

In Mosul, on 18 June 2005, the Iraqi League met several former female detainees and relatives of women still in prison. The league learned the following: security forces routinely take wives, parents, brothers or sisters, or even minors, as hostages in the event the suspect they are pursuing is not home.

Interrogators almost invariably ask women who have been taken into detention about the whereabouts of their male relatives rather than restricting their questions to acts for which the women themselves may have been accountable.

There are numerous women in prison who were still nursing infants at the time of their arrest and suffer intense psychological trauma from being separated from their children.

UNLAWFUL PRETEXTS: One of the most widespread causes of the detention of women in Iraq is to be used as bargaining chips to force their male relatives to surrender to authorities. Wives and daughters are brought in and threatened with rape in front of their male relatives so as to coerce the latter into confessions.

Not uncommon, too, is for women to be arrested on the grounds of "supporting the resistance". The stories below only hint at the scale of the constant threat that hangs over the heads of Iraqi women:

"Zakiya Sabaawi has been arrested because her husband, who is wanted by the occupation army, has fled ... "

"Iman Ahmed, of Amiriya, was taken into custody in order to force her brother, who is being pursued by occupation forces, to surrender himself."

"Sara Taha Al-Jumaili of Falluja was arrested twice. The first time occurred on 19 October 2005, when US forces alleged that she was the daughter of Zarqawi. It is common knowledge that Sara is the daughter of Taha Al-Jumaili, the well- known politician, who was under detention with the occupation forces when Sara was arrested. She was released in response to a popular demonstration and the declaration of a general strike. She was arrested again on 8 November on the charge of being a terrorist. Again, she was not released until the people declared a general strike and disseminated leaflets threatening the occupation forces with retaliatory acts."

"An official at the Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced yesterday that a board of review, consisting of six Iraqi officials and three American officers, met on 17 January and agreed to release the six Iraqi female detainees within a few days. Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that it still expects US forces to release the women, in spite of US statements to the contrary... Since that time, the statements of Iraqi officials have conflicted with the statements of their American counterparts with regard to the release of six of the eight Iraqi women being held in American prisons on suspicion of involvement in terrorism."