For more than 20 years, Saddam Hussein has executed perceived opponents without respect for rule of law. Saddam Hussein silences these alleged dissidents because he believes that their political beliefs, faith, ethnic background, family members, or acquaintances are a threat to his power. Some are first taken as political prisoners before being executed. In February 1998, 400 prisoners at Abu Gharaib prison were executed summarily. Two months later, 100 detainees from Radwaniyah Prison were buried alive in a pit in Ramadi province. These killings were supposed to "clean out" the prisons. More than 3,000 people have been killed in a similar manner since 1997.

Summary executions in Iraq take many cruel forms. A quick yet effective method is to line up the entire male population of a village and shoot them systematically, one at a time, in order to eliminate the village. Saddam Hussein's regime, however, often prefers methods that take more time and inflict more pain on the victim and the victim's family. His regime has poisoned political prisoners by giving them a slow-acting poison, thallium, which slowly infiltrates the system and takes several days to bring death. Iraqi citizens are often decapitated in front of family members, and at other times, they are shot in front of family members and the family is charged for the cost of the bullet. Saddam Hussein has perfected many of these methods of murder on Kurds in northern Iraq and religious leaders from the Shi'a community, claiming that they are disloyal to the government. Once murdered, many Iraqis are buried in unmarked graves so that their family members cannot visit them.

"It has been the Iraqi regime's policy to change the demography of Iraq, by eradicating the Kurdish population from areas that are deemed important in the north of the country. The regime has done this through forced deportation, arbitrary arrests, and systematic torture."

— Paiman Halmat, teacher, former Iraqi citizen

As a particularly brutal example of silencing political opposition, it is estimated that at least 30,000 to 60,000 members of the Shi'a community were killed during their post-Gulf War political insurrection in southern Iraq.

Silence Through Torture »