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UN Secretary-General Cites Rights Challenge In Iraq


Annan says due process must be upheld 9 June 2005 -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on 8 June that thousands of people are being held in Iraq without due process.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council, Annan said that 6,000 of the country's 10,000 prisoners are in the hands of the U.S. military.

Annan said detention without due process remains "one of the major human rights challenges" in Iraq.

In Iraq itself, gunmen kidnapped 22 Iraqi soldiers in the western part of the country. An Iraqi police official said that the soldiers were abducted on 7 June on the road from Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the town of Rawa.

Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol hit a roadside bomb near Ad-Dawr. Three Iraqi civilians also were killed in Baq'uba when a car bomb blew up outside of a petrol station.

Since 7 June, 47 Iraqis have lost their lives in attacks centered in the northern part of the country.

(Reuters)

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