Same shame, different site: the Afghan gulag

[dArKeR]

By Duncan Campbelland Suzanne Goldenberg
THE GUARDIAN , Afghanistan

Former police officer Syed Nabi Siddiqi, 47, is lying with his face pressed to the floor, his arms stretched painfully behind his back. He is demonstrating one of the milder interrogation techniques that he says he endured after he was arrested by foreign troops in Afghanistan last year as part of the US' Operation Enduring Freedom.

During the course of the next hour he will recount how American soldiers stripped him naked and photographed him, set dogs on him, asked him which animal he would prefer to have sex with, and told him his wife was a prostitute. He will tell also of hoods being placed over his head, of being forced to roll over every 15 minutes while he tried to sleep, and of being kept on his knees with his hands tied behind his back in a narrow tunnel-like space, unable to move.

Interviews with former Bagram prisoners, senior US military sources and human rights monitors in Afghanistan have uncovered widespread evidence of detainees facing beatings and sexual humiliations and being kept for long periods in painful positions. Detainees, none of whom were ever charged with any offence, told of American soldiers throwing stones at them as they defecated and of being stripped naked in front of large groups of interrogators. One detainee said that in order to be released after nearly two years' imprisonment, he had to sign a document stating that he had been captured in battle when in fact he had been arrested while driving his taxi with four passengers in it.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/06/28/2003176877

Illustration
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/photo/2004/06/28/2003138738

[struggle4progress]

1. And, of course, "none .. were ever charged with any offence."

So it's especially disgusting to see the Bushistas organizing a press campaign to create the impression that insisting on humane treatment has completely demoralized our interrogation teams.