Ghosts of Abu Ghraib still haunt Iraq

Opinion: December 29, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Uthman al-Mukhtar

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

BAGHDAD

The name has been changed, along with the management. But the specter of Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison continues to haunt local residents, many of who still call it the “House of Satan.”

Abu Ghraib, now called Baghdad Central Prison, became infamous in 2004 when pictures and reports emerged of horrific abuse carried out there by U.S. military police and other American agencies charged with running the facility.

Evidence of physical, psychological and sexual abuses led to the prosecution of 11 American troops. To many around the world, the shocking images that emerged came to symbolize the worst of America’s occupation of Iraq.

To those who live near the facility — most of them Sunni Arabs — the prison is to blame for a wide variety of social, economic and emotional problems that have beset the district in recent years.

The more superstitious residents talk about the area being haunted by those who suffered while behind bars.

“I used to laugh at the housewives in my neighborhood when they complained of their children having nightmares or they talked about ghosts who knocked on doors and tried to enter their homes or left messes in the kitchens and closets,” Gurfan Ala, a housewife in Abu Ghraib district, said. “But then my 8-year-old son, Rafid, started to tell me strange things that were happening to him. I told my husband that I wanted to leave the house and go to my sister’s in Baghdad. For now, I recite from the Quran and pray, and that helps us,” she said.

Supernatural events

Sana Ala, a teacher whose classroom overlooks the prison, said her primary school students are always discussing the latest gossip about supernatural events surrounding the prison.

“We pasted newspapers over the windows and we replaced other windows with tinted glass,” Ala said. “We don’t allow the students to go in the backyard of the school because it overlooks the prison.”

Ibrahim Abbas, a real estate agent in Abu Ghraib district, said that only about 30 percent of homes in the district are occupied.

“If you wanted to buy a house you would find that many homeowners would be willing to sell their houses at a 75 percent discount,” he said. “Some people rent one of these houses, but they end up moving after a while because of what they believe is the curse that affects this area around the prison. People talk of ghosts inhabiting these houses and some say they heard screams of torture. They believe that these voices were of detainees who were tortured and then killed in Abu Ghraib prison.

”The land of Abu Ghraib is cursed. This is what the insurgents circulated in their propaganda against the Americans, and people bought it,“ he said.

One recent homebuyer recently went to court, alleging that the previous owner had failed to disclose that the house was haunted.

”I didn’t know anything about the history of this area. Now we are frightened in the house. At night, everything gets creepy and the dogs and cats act strange,“ Waled Hamid said.

”People here are grim and miserable. They don’t exchange greetings, as if they are zombies. I really want my money back so I can leave this house and neighborhood for good,“ he said.

The court dismissed the suit.

Superstitions

Local cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Zobaie said the area was once a decent place to live, but now superstitions and fears had changed the outlook of locals.

”The answer to the problem of this place is for everyone to come back and live in their homes,“ he said. ”As Muslims, we believe in spirits, but we don’t believe in roaming, lost spirits that wander aimlessly. Evil spirits can be exorcised by reciting the Koran and praying to God in the house.“

Abu Ghraib prison was handed over to the Iraqi authorities in 2006 and officially reopened in earlier this year. Today it houses roughly 4,200 prisoners.

Uthman al-Mukhtar is a reporter in Iraq who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.