Survival of Abu-Ghraib Jail – Part III

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan | Special to Ekurd.net

Adaptation At Abu-Ghraib Jail, the Faili youths had a tough time to accept and undergo the process of Institutional life, which is the progression that inmates behaviors are shaped by the institutional environments in which they live. It is the negative psychological effects of imprisonment on the individuals and their behaviors. The adaptation of the Faili youths to the undeserved imprisonment was very difficult and intolerable. Because we were incarcerated for no crime that was committed and there was no definite time for our imprisonment.

The psychological effect of the iniquitous incarceration varies from individual to individual, and sometimes were reversible. Just to be clear, not everyone who was incarcerated is psychologically harmed by it. In general, prison is painful for everybody, and the incarcerated persons often suffer long-term consequences from having been subjected to pain, deprivation, and extremely atypical patterns and norms of living and interacting with others. But the unfair and the infinite imprisonment were completely difficult and offensive.

The more extreme, harsh, unfair, dangerous, and the nature of the confinement, the greater the number of youths will suffer and the deeper the damage that they will incur. It is important to emphasize that those were the natural and normal adaptations process that the Faili youths prisoners had to go under, and it was a normal response to the unnatural, inequitable and abnormal conditions of their penitentiary life. The longer that we were incarcerated, the more significant the nature of the institutional transformation gets. When we (Faili Kurds) first entered into our detention center (Abu-Ghraib Jail), we found ourselves being forced to adapt to harsh and rigid institutional routine, deprived of our privacy and liberty, subjected to a diminished legal status, living under a extremely stressful conditions, going through unpleasant circumstances, and suffered a difficult living condition. It was very natural for those youths to employed various psychological mechanisms in order to adjust and survive the harsh and dangerous correctional environments. We used to stay up all night and sleep during the day. We had nothing to do all day, and we could not go anywhere.

We were trapped between four walls sitting around and stareing at each others. Almost every day we used to ask the Jail guards about our status, and how long that we are going to be in this institution, and if they know when would we be liberated, but those guards had no answers for us. Every day that went by at that institution was no different from the previous day, they all looked the same, even the food was the same almost every day. At Abu-Ghraib Jail, we (Faili youths) forced ourselves to alienate ourselves from other Abu-Ghraib prisoners. Because the alienation and social distancing from others was a defense mechanism not only for the purpose of protecting ourselves against exploitation but also against the unpredictable emotional investments in a risky relationships. Because all those prisoners were there for a long period of time, and almost all of them were there for murders. Some of us learned to find safety and security in social invisibility by becoming as inconspicuous and unobtrusively disconnected from others as possible.

The social withdrawal and isolation was for the purpose of protecting ourselves from others, trusting virtually no one, and adjusting to the prison stress by having an isolated lives of quiet desperation. We were also forced to be very hyper vigilance and suspicion. Some of those youths enforced themselves to get tough with other prisoner to avoid victimization, because the life at Abu-Ghraib Jail was a barely controlled jungle, where the aggressive and the strong person will attempt to exploit the weak. Therefore, we learned quickly to become hyper vigilant and ever-alert for any signs of threat or personal risk. What I am sharing with you today, is a summary of what we experienced at Abu-Ghraib Jail, and I would like these information to be publically visible to others, so the world can acknowledge the degree of torture, humiliation, cruelty, discrimination, and the injustice that the Faili Kurds population endured for the last 35 years.

My goal is to put all these facts and events into a book that one day will be published to the whole world so everyone can learn what the Faili Kurds and especially their innocent youths had to undergo. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank this Kurdish website for giving us the chance to express ourselves and show the world the truth about the suffering and cruelty that the Faili Kurds experienced.

Dr. Ala Musa Hasan, a Canada-based Faili Kurd, PHD Candidates in Clinical Psychology.

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