PressEthic

Lynndie England was convicted on ‘six out of seven counts of conspiracy and maltreatment of Iraqi Prisoners’ according to The New York Times, on Monday September 26th.

Private England was seen grinning in several graphic photographs of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when the story went public in 2003/4. It sent shock waves throughout the world and made headlines in all the major papers. Suffice to say the press had a field day with the Abu Ghraib scandal forcing the authorities to sit up and take notice of the situation.

Recently, more incidents of Iraqi detainees being maltreated by American soldiers have been reported. Three former officers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division have come forth about incidents of prisoner abuse by their battalion mates at Camp Mercury near Falluja.

The news came out on September 24th and did not make any major headlines like Abu Ghraib. What’s worse is that there has been no follow-up on these latest developments. I have been searching the newspapers trying to find more information on this latest story and have failed so far.

Maybe it’s not such big news anymore because the initial shock of human rights violations by the US Army has worn off. However, I do feel that if stories of police abuse in China and Mexico can be splashed across the front page of a newspaper then this warrants some attention too.