General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChelsea Manning- Solitary confinement is 'no touch' torture, and it must be abolished
Shortly after arriving at a makeshift military jail, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in May 2010, I was placed into the black hole of solitary confinement for the first time. Within two weeks, I was contemplating suicide.
After a month on suicide watch, I was transferred back to US, to a tiny 6 x 8ft (roughly 2 x 2.5 meter) cell in a place that will haunt me for the rest of my life: the US Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Virginia. I was held there for roughly nine months as a prevention of injury prisoner, a designation the Marine Corps and the Navy used to place me in highly restrictive solitary conditions without a psychiatrists approval.
For 17 hours a day, I sat directly in front of at least two Marine Corps guards seated behind a one-way mirror. I was not allowed to lay down. I was not allowed to lean my back against the cell wall. I was not allowed to exercise. Sometimes, to keep from going crazy, I would stand up, walk around, or dance, as dancing was not considered exercise by the Marine Corps.
To pass the time, I counted the hundreds of holes between the steel bars in a grid pattern at the front of my empty cell. My eyes traced the gaps between the bricks on the wall. I looked at the rough patterns and stains on the concrete floor including one that looked like a caricature grey alien, with large black eyes and no mouth, that was popular in the 1990s. I could hear the drip drop drip of a leaky pipe somewhere down the hall. I listened to the faint buzz of the fluorescent lights.
For brief periods, every other day or so, I was escorted by a team of at least three guards to an empty basketball court-sized area. There, I was shackled and walked around in circles or figure-eights for 20 minutes. I was not allowed to stand still, otherwise they would take me back to my cell.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2016/may/02/solitary-confinement-is-solitary-confinement-is-torture-6x9-cells-chelsea-manningno-touch-torture-and-it-must-be-abolished
LiberalArkie
(15,716 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)TipTok
(2,474 posts)Last edited Mon May 2, 2016, 12:47 PM - Edit history (1)
While it applies to everyone, doubly so for high profile prisoners.
____________________________-
WASHINGTON (AP) Sarcastic remarks about suicide by underwear led an Army private suspected of leaking classified U.S. documents to be stripped of all his clothing at night, his lawyer says.
Pfc. Bradley Manning civilian lawyer, David Coombs, said in a blog post Saturday that his clients clothing was taken away at nights after Manning made a sarcastic comment that if he wanted to harm himself he could do that with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops.
Military officials had cited privacy rules Friday in not disclosing more about why Manning was stripped of all his clothing.
Manning is accused of giving classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/03/06/wikileaks-lawyer-suicide-joke-misinterpreted/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9717984/WikiLeaks-Bradley-Manning-had-history-of-suicidal-thoughts.html
snot
(10,529 posts)How is it that those responsible are not being prosecuted for torture???
We should be ashamed.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)Not only in the military, but they use solitary confinement as a punishment to prisoners in our regular prisons, many of them young people, the mentally ill, many of them totally innocent of whatever they were charged with.
Shame. Shame on us.