Hasan Ali Hasan

Hasan Ali Hasan works as a painter. He is married and has two daughters. In 2017, after a chase by ISIS, he was arrested and taken to the Midan Prison.

Before his arrest, he had been in a car with five men. ISIS members tried to arrest them for selling cigarettes, but they managed to escape. However, later that day, they were surprised by another Hisba patrol coming after them. At that point, they realized they were under surveillance.

ISIS was trying to identify the cigarette trade networks in the city and to capture their leaders.  Hasan explains that ISIS members banned the other prisoners from talking to him and his five companions. He says the other prisoners were threatened with severe punishments if they did, which led them to believe that he and his companions were detained on grave charges. 

Moreover, ISIS members tried to fabricate charges against Hasan. They accused him of belonging to a resistance group called Meem. The group, which surfaced in Mosul and included civilians and former military personnel, distributed leaflets and wrote anti-ISIS graffiti across the city. They signed their content with the Arabic letter ‘meem’, the first letter of the Arabic word for ‘resistance’. For Hasan, it was an illogical charge, since he was illiterate.

Turning to torture, Hasan says this was both both physical and psychological. He describes being beaten on his feet (falaqa) until they were swollen. The three ISIS members who were beating him would also pour water on his feet to make the beating hurt even more. After a torture session, he would be unable to walk.

He explains how the jailers would force a prisoner to lead the group prayers and then to glorify ISIS and praise its members. Of course, the rest of the prisoners had to follow suit. And the jailers sometimes imposed collective punishments on all the prisoners in the cell if they noticed any violations of their rules.

Hasan spent 13 days in the Midan Prison. He was released after paying a fine of 3,500,000 Iraqi dinars (about USD 2,700). His charge was selling cigarettes, even though ISIS members did not find any cigarettes in his car. 

After his release, he did not feel safe. Hisba patrols kept chasing him and his five friends. They often had to sleep outside their homes to stay out of reach of ISIS.