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Illegally imprisoned women 'face torture and sexual assault'

Thousands of women are being illegally held in Iraqi prisons

Thousands of women are being illegally held in Iraqi prisons, where they suffer torture and other abuse including sexual assault, Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged .

The claims were based on the testimony of female detainees, their relatives and lawyers, prison medics, court documents and meetings with officials.

Iraq's minority Sunni community says it is unfairly targeted by the authorities and security forces and points in particular to the treatment of women in prisons, with the issue dominating long-running protests in Iraq's Sunni-dominated areas.

HRW said that women in Iraqi prisons - the vast majority of whom are Sunni - have reported being beaten, kicked, slapped, given electric shocks and raped, while others have been threatened with sexual assault, sometimes in front of male relatives.

"Iraqi security forces and officials act as if brutally abusing women will make the country safer," HRW deputy Middle East and north Africa director Joe Stork said.

"In fact, these women and their relatives have told us that as long as security forces abuse people with impunity, we can only expect security conditions to worsen."

One of the 27 women interviewed by the New York-based watchdog had to walk on crutches because she had suffered nine days of beatings, electrical shocks and other forms of abuse that left her disabled.

She was later executed despite a medical report supporting her allegations of torture.

The women were often arrested in order to question their male relatives' alleged support for militants rather than crimes they themselves were believed to have committed.

HRW also said Iraq's judiciary does not do enough to investigate claims of torture or abuse, noting that in each of the cases it documented in which women complained to judges, no inquiry had been opened.

In recent months, Iraqi forces have faced a rising chorus of criticism that, with violence at its highest level since 2008 and more than 1,000 people killed last month, their heavy-handed tactics and abuses including mass arrests, prolonged periods of detention without trial and detainee abuse are doing little to stem near-daily attacks.

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