Nine people recently released from U.S. military custody in Afghanistan and Cuba claim that they were abused as early as 2002 and that abuses were not unique to Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report released today by Human Rights Watch.
The Bush administration has described the Abu Ghraib abuses as isolated conduct by a few out-of-control soldiers. But prisoners interviewed in Pakistan and Afghanistan said they were abused in detention facilities at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere in Afghanistan. They were beaten, kept awake for as long as 96 hours and held naked and in isolation for days, the report says.
Human Rights Watch is a U.S.-based, privately funded non-governmental organization that investigates human rights abuses.
One prisoner in Afghanistan, called "A" in the report, says he was threatened with electric shocks and was placed in a frigid isolation room for a month. A prisoner in Guantanamo, Mohammad Saghir of Pakistan, says he witnessed seven guards beating and kicking an Arab prisoner as punishment for spitting. Prisoner Abdul Razak said another prisoner at Guantanamo who had gashes on his head told him that guards were responsible, according to the report.
Razak, who spent 13 months in Cuba, says he was interrogated at least 10 times at Guantanamo. He says his interrogators, dressed in plain clothes, would shackle him to a chair and question him but did not abuse him.
Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Commander Barbara Burfeind said investigations into allegations of abuse are underway. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are treated humanely, she said.
"We are a nation at war and we are also a nation of laws," McClellan said.
The report says that several Bagram prisoners describe being exposed to winter temperatures for 10 to 12 hours and kept awake for 40 to 96 hours before interrogations.
The report also says that at least 13 "high value" prisoners have "disappeared" into U.S. custody. The prisoners named in the report are all top level al-Qaeda or Taliban operatives whom the U.S. government has acknowledged capturing. Human Rights Watch says holding these prisoners in undisclosed locations without oversight by the Red Cross or notification of families creates a climate for abuse.
The Bush administration has described the Abu Ghraib abuses as isolated conduct by a few out-of-control soldiers
Does Bush and the American people really believe this is an "isolated" one time incident? Give me a break. What a bunch of BS. This has been going on for years and has finally been brought forward.
There is next to nothing in that article that isn't done in American prisons on our soil. And your apparently timid heart would surely go pitter-pad if you saw the way Americans are treated in military prisons.
Get thrown in the Navy brig and spit on a marine guard. You'll spend the rest of your time playing dominoes with your teeth.
vc1111 - that was about the best response to people whining about the poor prisoners. 3,000 people brutally murdered while at work. They were not prisoners, they were not terrorists, they were not suicide bombers. They were innocent people working and making a living for their loving families. Screw those prisoners.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not whining about the abuse of the prisoners. However, I do think the US needs to acknowledge that this has happend and still happens a lot more than just one or two times. This crap has happened since before Vietnam.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not whining about the abuse of the prisoners.
Yes you are.
I have questions about the application of the Geneva Convention to terrorists. They wear no uniforms, they make no overt claims about representing any nation, and they begin by breaking all rules of conventional warfare. Yet those of your mindset would grant them full protection under both the Geneva Convention and the constitution of the United States of America.
However, I will be the first to admit that the interpretation of such law is beyond my training or experience.
More prisoner abuse reported
