Falaqa & Shabah (Iraqi tortures)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   The 3 December 2002 NEW YORK POST, pg. 5, had a box on "Saddam's methods
of torture."  One is:

_FALAQA:_  Victims forced to lie face down and are beaten on the soles of
feet with a cable.

   A web search for this term also provides "shabah" or "shabeh," which is
enlonged sitting or standing in a painful position.
   There are many Google hits for "falaqa" and "shabah," but neither is in
the OED (unless I'm looking under the wrong spelling).

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(O.T.  December 4th's WORDSPY "Words About Words" author is Erin McKean.
November 29th's Word Spy "Word of the Day" was credited to the ADS-L's
Laurence Horn--ed.)