Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Being Tortured By Military

Ex-Prisoners Allege Rights Abuses by U.S. Military

By Tania Branigan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 19, 2003; Page A02

Prisoners released from the military camps at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Bagram air base in Afghanistan have said in a series of interviews with Amnesty International that they were subjected to human rights abuses.


The accounts, which provide some of the most detailed information so far on alleged violations, include claims that people were forcibly injected, denied sleep and forced to stand or kneel for hours in painful positions. These charges are included in a new report from the human rights organization, which is reviewing 23 months of U.S. actions in the war on terror.

Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to comment yesterday, saying he had not seen the report. NSC spokesmen have challenged previous claims of ill treatment, saying that the United States treats enemy combatants humanely.

About 700 prisoners have been kept at Guantanamo Bay, most captured in Afghanistan after the war in 2001. About 60 men have since been released. Many had been transferred there through the base at Bagram, north of Kabul, which still holds an unknown number of prisoners. The United States has designated the prisoners "enemy combatants" and has refused them access to lawyers or relatives. Earlier this year, it scheduled six detainees to face military tribunals, but three of those prosecutions have been suspended pending the completion of negotiations with the defendants' governments in Britain and Australia.

The report, "Threat of a Bad Example," concludes that conditions at the bases may be coercive in the context of repeated interrogations and calls for the Bush administration to treat detainees humanely, provide legal counsel and charge them promptly with recognizable criminal offenses -- or release them.

In the report, one Afghan detainee, Alif Khan, recalled being given two injections, producing "a kind of unconsciousness," for his transfer from Bagram.

Another, Sayed Abassin, said that while at Bagram, he was awakened by guards, denied adequate food and forced to stand or kneel for hours.

A third man, Muhammad Naim Farooq, said fellow detainees at Guantanamo had wept because of pain from handcuffs. He also said that two men who had attempted suicide were punished with solitary confinement.

"These interviews with former prisoners are damning and add to the poor record of the Bush administration with regard to human rights over the past 23 months," said Alexandra Arriaga, director of government relations for Amnesty International USA.

"The record is shameful: hooding, blindfolding and shackling of prisoners, together with arbitrary arrests, prolonged incommunicado detention, ill treatment and interrogations without legal counsel," she said.

After several months of controversy over tactics in dealing with prisoners, the Bush administration pledged two months ago that the United States would not torture terrorism suspects or subject them to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment to extract information.

Arriaga said it was impossible to independently judge conditions at the camps, as the organization had been denied entry.

Allegations of serious mistreatment have centered on Bagram. In interviews with The Washington Post last year, members of the U.S. national security apparatus said "stress and duress" techniques had been used there.

Concern for detainees mounted earlier this year when pathologists at Bagram called the deaths of two Afghan prisoners after interrogation homicides and blamed blunt-force injuries in addition to other causes. The U.S. military is still investigating the deaths.

Jamie Fellner, U.S. program director for Human Rights Watch, said it has been "extremely difficult to know" if the United States is treating people humanely during interrogations. "No one has been allowed to talk to detainees. These [accounts] are the beginning of the first insight into their experiences," she said.

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Being Tortured By Military

Good.

Hey, the American government is the hand of god, they can do exactly what they want to regardless of what everybody else (sounds like the french, doesn't it?)

Who gives a # about nuclear treaties, trade agreements and basic human rights. It's definitely not the US govt.

Bush only cares about votes, oil and votes.

The people being held are enemy combatants. Terrorists. Animals. They should have been destroyed on the battlefield. It's funny how everyone forgets about the global dilution of human rights. A couple monsters end up dead, and the liberals are up in arms.

Originally posted by goregrinder
The people being held are enemy combatants. Terrorists. Animals. They should have been destroyed on the battlefield. It's funny how everyone forgets about the global dilution of human rights. A couple monsters end up dead, and the liberals are up in arms.

I don't know if you know this, but the US are a member of the UN. The have to abide to the Geneva Convention with strictly forbids humiliating or torturing prisoners of war. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW

Damn I cannot believe that goregrinder and I agree on something. What is the world coming to? These idiots are lucky to be alive. They should thank the US for that and enjoy the treatment that is far more humane than what they deserve. If I was in command when they tried to surrender I would have refused their surrender and shot them to the last man. Die for your cause you worthless scumsucker!!!

Originally posted by goregrinder
The people being held are enemy combatants. Terrorists. Animals. They should have been destroyed on the battlefield. It's funny how everyone forgets about the global dilution of human rights. A couple monsters end up dead, and the liberals are up in arms.

You are missing the point goregrinder. The US is supposed to set the standard for the rest of the world. After all we are the champion of human rights arent we? When we start torturing prisoners whats to stop them from eventually doing that to citizens? That makes us no better than the countries we criticize for human rights abuses.

Since when did we designate ourselves (Americans) as the moral leaders of the world?

If other countries look to us for leadership, moral or political, then that is their choice and not ours. Personally, I think that countries should hold themselves responsible for their own actions and lack thereof. I have full faith that if we did something absolutly reprehensible or illegal (thats OUR laws people - not the spineless, meaningless UN), then our people would and will hold our leaders accountable.

That being said......

Those animals being caged in Gitmo are getting what they deserve. An honorable death on the battlefield is too good for them. If I had my way there would be a little cage on every street corner in NYC and Washington D.C. And in these cages would be one of these pathetic, cowardly slugs. And I would let the people make sport of them, and I would let them see the country and cities that they tried to destroy, and make them live there the rest of their patheitc, little lives as a nice little punishment before they are consigned to an eternity in Hell.

As far as I am concerned, we may have less emboldened terrorists to deal with if we set a few examples.

This hardly sounds like the rack, thumbscrews and the bastinado!
Perversely enough, there was some benighted peasant in the drivel-media but a few days ago claiming that he son was treated better at the Camp than he would have ben at home!
The precise status of these Martyrs for Allah is not legally clear nor is the exact extent to which the Geneva Convention and other aspects of International Law apply. And there does seeem to be some rather wilful confusion between Bagram and Guantanomo in this vague article.
And just about everything appears to an "Abuse of Human rights" nowadays: no doubt expecting them to use Western lavatories and toilet pape is an abuse of their Human Rights.
No -the Estragon-Sympathy-Meter is very much on "low" here.

Let's see, kneeling for long time spans, sitting up, sleep deprivation...

OOOOOHHHH MOMMY!

You have GOT to be kidding! Sounds like a standard watch on a ship at sea! This is NOT Torture.

The boyz they have in Cuba KNOW what torture is... That's how they stayed in POWER remember? The Hussein boy was the master blaster of torture.

I'm with Groingrinder, (man what IS the world coming to) to the extent I would've refused their surrender but I would've gotten the intel out of them BEFORE I shot them dead where they stood.

P...
m...

I'm all broken up that they lost some sleep. They should consider themselves lucky they weren't killed in battle.I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that brought the war to us.
Have people so quickly forgotten how they treat us? Like Daniel Pearl.

so i should feel sorry because the handcuffs hurt them and they have lost sleep??.......no !! The people i feel sorry for are their victims. The thousands of people who died on Sept 11th are the ones my heart goes out to.