Released on = October 26, 2006, 7:28 pm

Press Release Author = Veteran Organ Donors International

Industry = Healthcare

Press Release Summary = Young children held until fathers surrender themselves

Press Release Body = 10.27.06 (Toronto) Today, the Chairman of Veteran Organ
Donors International Bruce A. Gorcyca, also a U.S. military veteran, announced that
their volunteer group received information from two independent sources in Baghdad
that Iraqi children as young as 5 and 6 years old were being pulled from their
classrooms and privately interrogated by U.S. soldiers in uniforms about their
fathers. The children were asked if they wanted to be "mujahadin" when they grow up
and those that responded with a "yes" were then asked if their fathers were
"Mujahadin". If they again answered "yes" the children were taken away and held
hostage until their fathers surrendered themselves for interrogation that could last
for weeks, as they have in the past. Historically, less than half of those
interrogated are ever released.

We received this information from the same source that told us of Iraqi mothers and
wives being taken from their homes in 2005 in much the same manner by U.S. troops
who then offered to release the women only if their husbands and sons would
surrender and submit interrogation under the influence of drugs . ABC News later
confirmed that story to be true a few weeks after we received the information. "I
consider these tactics to be barbaric, un-American, and shameful" said Gorcyca.
"Some members of the Arab League have suggested this may be yet another potential
war crime, and we want the United Nations to establish a war crime commission to
look into this immediately" he added.

Just last week VODI published an open letter to the United Nations, U.S. Congress,
and Parliament demanding that the death of over 5,000 Iraqi children from American
bombs, missiles, and bullets be investigated. The group is now trying to attend to
the some 3,000 Iraqi children in need of organ transplants due to injuries received
from the last two invasions over the last decade. Extensive use of radioactive
depleted uranium weapons by coalition forces has almost doubled the leukemia rate of
Iraqi children who are now in desperate need of bone marrow transplants. "Iraqi
parents take no comfort in the fact their children were not killed or maimed
deliberately" remarked Gorcyca who further explained "It is not hard to understand
the growing insurgency in Iraq which may be nothing more than enraged citizens
seeking revenge for the death of their children or parents". The Toronto-based
human rights group is staffed by volunteer veterans of the U.S. and Canadian
military.


Web Site = http://www.VeteranOrganDonors.org

Contact Details = 117 Lakeshore Road East
Suite 339
Toronto, Ontario L5G-4T6
Tel: 905-891-1981
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