BAGHDAD, Iraq – Voting began today in hospitals, military camps and even prisons across Iraq, launching the process to choose a new parliament that the United States hopes can help quell the insurgency so U.S. forces can begin heading home.
On Sunday, 13 prisoners that had been subjected to torture were found in a detention center, an Iraqi official said.
Iraq’s government announced it will close its borders, extend the nighttime curfew and restrict domestic travel starting Tuesday – two days before the main election day – to prevent insurgents from disrupting the vote.
Voters will be choosing their first fully constitutional parliament since the 2003 collapse of former President Saddam Hussein. The 275-member assembly, which will serve for four years, will then choose a new government that U.S. officials hope can win the confidence of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority – the foundation of the insurgency.
Although most of the 15 million eligible voters will cast ballots Thursday, soldiers, police, hospital patients and prisoners not yet convicted of crimes can vote today.
Officials said Hussein, who is jailed and facing trial for the deaths of more than 140 Shiites in 1982, has the right to vote, but it was not known whether he would. Suspected insurgents who are being held in U.S. or Iraqi detention but have not been convicted of an offense also are eligible, Iraqi officials said.
On Tuesday, the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi voters living outside the country can begin casting their ballots over a two-day period at polling centers in 15 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia.
In a statement Sunday, Iraq’s election commission said it was investigating a fivefold increase in the number of new voters in Kirkuk “that is difficult to explain.”
Separately, Iraqi and British officials said Sunday they had no word on the fate of four Christian peace activists more than a day after the expiration of a deadline set by kidnappers to kill them if all prisoners weren’t released.
Among the four is an American, 54-year-old Tom Fox of Clear Brook, Va.
Also Sunday, an Iraqi government search of a detention center in Baghdad operated by Interior Ministry special commandos found 13 prisoners who had suffered abuse serious enough to require medical treatment, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
An Iraqi official said at least 12 of the 13 prisoners had been subjected to “severe torture,” including courses of electric shock and episodes that left them with broken bones.
“Two of them showed me their nails, and they were gone,” the official said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
A government spokesman, Laith Kubba, said Sunday night that any findings at the prison would be “subject to an investigation” but declined to comment on the allegations.
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