Red Cross: Torture at Gitmo

[Ramo]

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

[...]

The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."

Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said

[...]

The report of the June visit said investigators had found a system devised to break the will of the prisoners at Guantánamo, who now number about 550, and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions." Investigators said that the methods used were increasingly "more refined and repressive" than learned about on previous visits.

"The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture," the report said. It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to "some beatings." The report did not say how many of the detainees were subjected to such treatment.

[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30gitmo.html?oref=login&hp&ex=1101790800&en=6bddf8afb85e06e9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

You might remember that the Red Cross were among the first to warn of abuse in Abu Ghraib.

Well, good thing Alberto Gonzales is on the job.

[Dinner]

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. Both conventions give very exact definitions of what constitutes torture and the very fact that these people cannot name which part of the conventions are supposedly being violated tells me exactly how frivolous these claims are.

[notyoueither]

I call humiliating acts and beatings torture. What do you call it?

[Dinner]

So these people consider solitary confinment to be torture? What a farse! That is a universally accepted punishment for disruptive prisoners and is practiced in just about every prison in the world.

[notyoueither]

Beatings and being sexially degraded are a far cry from solitary confinement.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And the UN Convention Against Torture (signed and ratified by the US, btw) also defines this behavior as torture:

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

It ain't frivolous at all.

[Nubclear]

RED Cross - RED flag.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

[DinoDoc]

That seems more than a bit overbroad.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That seems more than a bit overbroad.

That's nice, but since the US ratified it, it happens to be the law of the land.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Beatings and being sexially degraded are a far cry from solitary confinement.

That's funny. The Red Cross didn't claim those occured at Gitmo. Don't you think that if there was any creditable evidence they would have spoken up about it? Of course they would have so how about sticking to the facts?

[DinoDoc]

Which is kind of irrelevent to the point I was making. It's cool you thought I didn't already know that though.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

That's nice, but since the US ratified it, it happens to be the law of the land.

I'd like to hear more about this. Do you have a link which gives the whole text of the treaty and shows if and when the treaty was ratified?

[Ramo]

detainees were subjected to "some beatings."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which is kind of irrelevent to the point I was making.

No, not really. I was pointing out that your 'overbroad' feeling was irrelevent.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin


That's funny. The Red Cross didn't claim those occured at Gitmo. Don't you think that if there was any creditable evidence they would have spoken up about it? Of course they would have so how about sticking to the facts?

The report of the June visit said investigators had found a system devised to break the will of the prisoners at Guantánamo, who now number about 550, and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions." Investigators said that the methods used were increasingly "more refined and repressive" than learned about on previous visits.

"The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture," the report said. It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to "some beatings." The report did not say how many of the detainees were subjected to such treatment.

After AbuG, do you need photos of what 'humiliating acts' are?

Did someone redefine 'beating' while I wasn't paying attention?