Wrongful incarceration not unusual in Iraq (breeds "collective terror")

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hani Hashem Salen crowded into a small square outside the al Nosoor prison near Baghdad's Mansour district and joined 127 other men who were stealing longing glances at three white pickups.

The men were dusty and gray, barefoot - their clothes little more than rags. The pickups would take them to freedom, after months of wrongful imprisonment.

"For two months I sat in that dirty, dim cell and cursed the day I was born," Salen whispered as he waited earlier this week for official word that he was free. "I did nothing, yet I wasn't allowed even to see my family. They don't even know I'm getting out today. Why did this happen to me?"
.....
Sociologist Ehsan Mohammad, at Baghdad University, said the community now was full of innocent people who had been jailed, which caused a breakdown in trust of the system.

"We call it collective terror," he said. "Every Iraqi now fears that he may be next. And those who have been arrested once, how can they live a normal, smooth life, without the dread of being a victim again?"

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13074168.htm