A former Iraqi political prisoner will speak in Oxford to mark the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

Haifa Zangana, 55, a Kurdish Iraqi author, was thrown into prison and tortured under Saddam Hussein's regime in 1974-5 for being a member of a faction of the Communist Party.

After a brutal six-month stint in jail she left for Lebanon and Syria and joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation. In 1976 she came to London, which has been her home ever since.

She visited Iraq in 2004 to witness the country under the occupation of American and British troops and will speak on the subject in a talk called Religion Resistance in Occupied Iraq, in Summertown, on Sunday.

She said: "Iraq is a war zone, the city of Baghdad is unrecognisable, there is complete destruction. The hospitals don't have enough doctors, and the Iraqi people have suffered complete destruction of their morale and education.

"People are in certain danger all of the time in Iraq. There are factions, militias, suicide bombers and 60-70 people are kidnapped every day. When they leave their homes they don't know if they are coming back. They pray each time before they leave the house that they will return.

"No-one knows what's happening. It's a complete disaster. Corruption is thriving."

She was against the invasion of Iraq and is campaigning against the occupation.

"The Iraqi people are exhausted. They don't need any further wars. The US and the UK had their own interests and reasons for going into Iraq, it was nothing to do with the welfare of the Iraqi people."

She believes Saddam should be put on trial but that he was no worse than the current regime.

She said: "Saddam Hussein is no worse than Bush and Blair. They should all be put on trial. The constitution was manufactured, it wasn't made in a process that involved Iraqis. Most Iraqis don't care about it at all."

Ms Zangana, who is a commentator for The Guardian, Red Pepper and al-Ahram Weekly, will speak and answer questions at the Summertown Hall, on the corner of Banbury Road and Portland Road, at 3pm.

The talk is being organised by the Muslim Education Centre in Oxford.