Red Cross: Torture at Gitmo

[Dinner]

What exactly are they claiming to be "temperature extremes"? Also they've already defined solitary as "humiliating and cruel" in the past so forgive me if I am skeptical of their current claims. Not a single country any where in world that I've heard of defines solitary as cruel and humiliating yet some how in past releases the ICRC came out calling solitary exactly that. Because of this I no longer believe what they say unless it has complete documentation and outside experts agree.

Forced positions? Hell, making a prison sit on the floor is a forced position as is standing up for roll call. I'd have to read about real cases before I believe any of these claims at face value.

They've exaggerated things so often in the past.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So are you saying that solitary confinement for months on end (as has been written about some prison systems... namely the Turkish one a few decades ago... hell, perhaps even now), would not be considered cruel and humiliating? You can bet your ass that if a person was sent in solitary for months, the SCOTUS would rule that it was cruel and unusual punishment.

And I wonder why all this hate and disbelief for a group that is dedicated to preventing torture around the world, which the US uses when it is its benefit to do so. Is it because it is that painful to realize that the US engages in torture?

If the Red Cross is saying this against Cuba, you are jumping up and down saying how horrible they are. They say it against the US, and you are saying you can't believe these claims at face value. The hypocrisy is amazing.

[Drake Tungsten]

It seems obvious to me that the current board of the Red Cross is defining torture very differently then the Geneva and Hague Conventions did.

Obviously. Don't blame the whole Red Cross for this, though; it's only the ICRC...

[notyoueither]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3509750.stm

Last Updated: Sunday, 14 March, 2004, 16:10 GMT

Tipton three complain of beatings

Three Britons released from Guantanamo Bay after two years of imprisonment have told of the conditions they endured as terror suspects.
The three - Ruhal Ahmed, 22, Asif Iqbal, 22, and Shafiq Rasul, 26, all from Tipton in the West Midlands - returned to Britain last week.

They had been captured in Afghanistan, suspected of links to the Taleban, and were taken to the US camp in Cuba.

The three told UK newspapers they were often beaten by US troops.

Their claims of abuse come after similar descriptions by two other released Britons.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell has dismissed claims of mistreatment, saying Americans "don't abuse people who are in our care".

Mr Iqbal said that while being held by US troops in Afghanistan they were made to kneel bent double, with their foreheads touching the ground.

"If your head wasn't touching the floor or you let it rise up a little they put their boots on the back of your neck and forced it down. We were kept like that for two or three hours."

Mr Rasul said he was also kicked, punched and knelt on by troops.

Interrogation

The Tipton men said they were repeatedly questioned by British and American interrogators.

They said they endured three months of solitary confinement in Camp Delta's isolation block last summer after they were wrongly identified by the Americans as having been pictured in a video tape of a meeting in Afghanistan between Osama bin Laden and the leader of the 11 September hijackers Mohamed Atta.

Mr Ahmed said during an interrogation session in Afghanistan with an MI5 officer and another official who said he was from the Foreign Office, "all the time I was kneeling with a guy standing on the backs of my legs and another holding a gun to my head."

But Mr Powell, told ITV's Tonight: "We have watched Guantanamo Bay very carefully, knowing of the interest of a number of nations, including the United Kingdom, and knowing that we have responsibilities under the Geneva Convention, and because we are Americans, we don't abuse people who are in our care."

Mr Powell said it was "not in the American tradition to treat people in that manner" and the US had followed the Geneva Convention.

"It is not a resort area in Guantanamo Bay, but at the same time, we did not abuse the individuals who were down there."

'Stupid' questions

A Foreign Office spokeswoman told BBC News Online it was "looking into" the allegations and the UK had done "more than any other country" for the detainees' welfare.

For the flight from Afghanistan to Cuba, Mr Rasul said they had their heads shaved, body cavities searched, were dressed in orange overalls, given goggles and earmuffs, and chained.


Ruhal Ahmed & Shafiq Rasul were accused of links to the Taleban
"The only thing that relieved the sensory deprivation and occupied me for the 22-hour flight was that I was in serious pain," Mr Rasul told the Observer.

"The guards told me to go to sleep but the belt was digging into me - when I finally got to Cuba I was bleeding. I lost feeling in my hands for the next six months."

He said initially he was scared of the interrogations, but changed his opinion when a young interrogator asked him: "If I wanted to get hold of surface-to-air missiles in Tipton, where would I go?"

"Towards the end the questions just seemed stupid," he said.

Mr Rasul said before they were released, the FBI tried to persuade the men to sign a form admitting links with terrorism. None of them did so.

The claims by the trio echo previous claims of poor treatment made by two other released Britons - Tarek Dergoul, 26, from east London, and Jamal Udeen, 37, from Manchester.

Four Britons remain at Guantanamo Bay: Feroz Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London, Moazzam Begg, 36, from Sparkhill, Birmingham; Martin Mubanga, 29, from north London, and Richard Belmar, 23, from Maida Vale, London.

Take heart, it isn't just the Yanks.

[Dinner]

Have you folks forgotten the captured Al Qeada handbooks and how they told Al Qeada members to lie and always claim they were mistreated? I'd like to see a neutral party do an investigation but I don't see how the ICRC can be trusted since it has so frequently distorted and misrepresented the facts. I want conditions judged according to the laws of war which are explicitly spelled out in the Geneva and Hague conventions not some wishy-washy open to interpritation UN declaration.

[Dinner]

After all the GC says in its text that it is the supreme law of war so as I see it in war time we go according to the internationally agreed standards of war time conduct.

[notyoueither]

Yeah, I guess you're right. All those AQ faked photos of Lindsie walking the dogs. Damn. How could I have been fooled?

[Drake Tungsten]

'd like to see a neutral party do an investigation but I don't see how the ICRC can be trusted since it has so frequently distorted and misrepresented the facts. I want conditions judged according to the laws of war which are explicitly spelled out in the Geneva and Hague conventions not some wishy-washy open to interpritation UN declaration.

Oerdin

[SpencerH]

Didnt we discuss this before? These definitions of torture are worthless. We treated prisoners, captured on exercise, harsher than what has been described here.

A question that needs to be asked though is just what info we hope to gain from prisoners who've been in captivity for years.

"If I wanted to get hold of surface-to-air missiles in Tipton, where would I go?"

Go to The Afghani Curry House on Lancaster Road and ask for Haseem.

[the_ceebs]

I don't see how the ICRC can be trusted since it has so frequently distorted and misrepresented the facts

Give us some specific examples. Googling that I seem to see a lot of descriptions of the ICRC finding governments to be distorting and misrepresenting positions.

[Bosh]

What about the case when (for the purposes of training) they had an American soldier be under a bed and refuse to come out and they sent in other American soldiers (who had been told he was a terror suspect) to haul him out. The soldiers been him so hard he had to be medically discarched for brain damage.

There is no doubt in my mind that some very unpleasant stuff has been happening in Gitmo.

[General Ludd]

[Gibsie]

I'm going to have to side with Oerdin and give the US the benefit of the doubt. Haven't they earnt it?

[the_ceebs]

I'm going to have to side with Oerdin and give the US the benefit of the doubt. Haven't they earnt it?

Haven't the ICRC

[Arrian]

****.

-Arrian