Iraq transformed into mini-states and sects in the new era, consuming the state and all of its institutions, both small and large, leaving the central state without a framework. Iraq was divided into independent states, each of which imposed its own bloody laws and oppressive authoritarian measures on the homeland and its citizens. The destruction of the Iraq was spread out because armed militia states loyal to Iran or the Najaf Marjaiya, as well as the Kurdistan region, came into being. Iraq now contains more than 70 militias, meaning that Iraq is divided into more than 70 militia states. Every militia has security services and institutions that oversee everything and operate its own secretive prisons. The Popular Mobilization forces’ track record in Iraq is notable for its use of the following vocabulary: killings, physical liquidation, kidnapping, threats, burning of homes, and relocation.
Weakening Iraq, terrorizing society, liquidating opponents, and abolishing the other is a major reason for the establishment of secret prisons. We note the horrific number of assassinations and kidnappings that claimed the lives of terrifying numbers of writers, journalists, media professionals, human rights activists, and peaceful demonstrators, imitating the brutal and barbaric style that the experts of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who carried out the kidnappings and murders with ideological or paid local hands. Secret prisons are spread throughout Baghdad and the rest of Iraq’s governorates, and these prisons hold thousands of Iraqi and foreign detainees and members of the Iranian opposition.
The Al-Muthanna Military Airport Prison, located in the heart of Baghdad, is considered one of the Dawa Party’s secret prisons. Aside from the secret prison, it also includes the party’s offices, meeting rooms, and the headquarters of one of the Iranian-funded satellite channels affiliated with the Dawa party. The other prison is the Mazraa (Ranch) prison, which belongs to Shibl Al-Zaidi, the leader of the Imam Ali militia, which is one of the Iranian-backed state militias. It is near the Zaafaraniya neighborhood, which is at the southern entrance to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The other site is what is known as Al-Hashd prison, which was the headquarters of the Federal Police and now it is controlled by the militias, the terrorist Popular Mobilization forces, and it is located in the Sadr Al-Qanat area in Baghdad. The Popular Mobilization owns another prison called the Popular Mobilization Security Department. It is in the Al-Jadriya neighborhood of Baghdad’s Al-Rusafa district, which is run by Iran-backed militias. Media sources say that detainees in militia prisons are subjected to all kinds of torture, such as beatings, suffocation, electric shocks all over the body, burning, pulling out nails and teeth, and pretending to drown, in order to get confessions or promises.
Perhaps the most prominent of the other secret prisons affiliated with the PMF are those located in the town of Jurf Al-Sakhar in the Babil Governorate, south of Baghdad, which hosts military bases, missile and weapons stores, and intelligence centers for the Revolutionary Guards and their external wing, the Quds Force, and the Iraq Hezbollah Brigades militia. The PMF militia turned the strategic town of Jurf Al-Sakhar at the end of 2014 into a military area after carrying out genocide against its Sunni Arab residents and displacing the rest of them under the pretext of the war against ISIS. Most of the people in Jurf al-Sakhar prison are civilians from the Karkh neighborhood in Baghdad and the neighboring neighborhoods of Zawba’, Karagul, Jamilat, Al-Buisi, Al-Ghurair, and Al-Bahmadan.
Since the demonstrations began in October 2019, the Popular Mobilization Authority has put its members on high alert and opened a new secret headquarters as well as secret headquarters in the Latifiya area, specifically in the former Qaqaa facility. These headquarters are a group of prisons guarded by forces called Ruhallah, and the person responsible for them is Abu Ali Al-Juwaibrawi, a member of the Badr Organization and close to Hadi Al-Amiri, and he is the head of the security committee in the Baghdad Provincial Council. Sources in the media say that the Badr militia has taken a lot of protesters who were arrested and put them in Latifiya prison.
The Nineveh Plain area east of Mosul also has secret prisons run by the 30th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization, whose members include members of the Shabak Brigade, Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq militia, and Kata’ib Hezbollah Iraq. Hundreds of people who have been taken by these militias are being held in prisons on the Nineveh Plains. Almost every day, the PMF takes people from the area around Nineveh Governorate and brings them to these prisons. Officers from the “Quds Force” and Iranian Al-Atla’a, along with the PMF militias, supervise these prisons, which are located within a group of military bases and Iranian missile stores in this area. This is in addition to another prison, which is Al-Bo Mustafa prison and the thermal station, and the majority of the detainees are from Mosul residents who were arrested in the city of Al-Rutba and the Al-Razzaza area in Anbar. This is in addition to the prisons affiliated with the Saraya al-Salam militia, which are deployed in the Al-Sada area in Sadr City, Palestine Street and other scattered areas in Baghdad, in addition to a secret prison inside the apartment complex opposite the tomb of “Sayyid Muhammad” in Balad District, north of Baghdad.
Recent statements by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi calling for the release of all prisoners are nothing more than “media propaganda” meant to appease the outrage of the Iraqi public. The Supreme Judicial Council’s statement to Mustafa Al-Kadhimi on May 13, 2020, that no peaceful protesters had been detained or found guilty serves as proof of this. The court’s statement brought up the issue of secret prisons run by armed militias outside the authority of the Iraqi government, where thousands of Iraqi abductees are believed to be held. According to reports from the Iraqi Center for Documentation of War Crimes, more than 25,000 protesters have been locked up in Baghdad and other cities in the south of Iraq since October 1, 2019. The director of the “Iraqi Center for Documentation of War Crimes” also warned of the danger of these prisons and the terrorism and torture taking place inside them. According to The director of the “Iraqi Center for Documentation of War Crimes”, detention facilities should be dealt with in accordance with international private law, the International Criminal Court, and international human rights mechanisms. This would shield the Iraqi people from the dangers of militias and assassination attempts.