guantánamo bay torture methods
In the case of the Guantánamo Bay military prison and the blacksites, the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee Study found that the torture program was not effective in this regard, and that the CIA’s claims about its effectiveness rested on lies and exaggerations. Watch later. contract psychologists to create, walling was “discombobulating” and meant to stir up. IMPACT: A majority of those imprisoned at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp were subjected to various forms of physical and psychological abuse—techniques that were developed by two American psychologists contracted by the CIA to develop its torture program. Subsequent intelligence analysis showed that while Mr. Zubaydah was a jihadist, he had no advance knowledge about the 9/11 attacks, nor was he a member of Al Qaeda. He is held at the base’s most secretive prison, Camp 7, where he drew these sketches not as artwork, whose release from Guantánamo is now forbidden, but as legal material that was reviewed and cleared — with one redaction — for inclusion in the study. The Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strikes were a series of prisoner protests at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Mr. Zubaydah portrays himself in the drawings with both eyes. While her nomination was controversial (over one hundred retired military officers released a, calling her unfit for the position due to her role in the torture program), she was. His accounting of why and how the United States inflicted torture on detainees offers a […] represented.” Its use induced convulsions, vomiting and left Mr. Zubaydah “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”, In a now declassified account he provided his lawyer in 2008, Mr. Zubaydah described the first of what would be 83 waterboarding sessions this way: “They kept pouring water and concentrating on my nose and my mouth until I really felt I was drowning and my chest was just about to explode from the lack of oxygen.”. In his illustration, Mr. Zubaydah shows himself nude and shackled at the wrists to a bar above his head, forced to stand on tiptoe. Mr. Zubaydah recalled that agents used a method of “horizontal sleep deprivation” that involved shackling him flat on the ground in such a painful position that it made it impossible to sleep. “The only spot I could sit in was on top of the bucket, for the place was very tight.”, In his account, Mr. Zubaydah describes being confined in “a large wooden box that looked like a wooden casket.” The first time he saw it, guards were turning it vertical and a man in black clothes and a military jacket announced, “From now on, this is going to be your home.”. The contract was, in 2009 under the Obama Administration, by which point Mitchell, Jessen and Associates had received, In testimony delivered during the pretrial hearings for five men currently on trial in Guantánamo Bay, Mitchell, no remorse for his participation. Copyright © 2018 Georgetown University. The United States government explicitly sanctioned this torture in the infamous 2002 “, ,” drafted by John Yoo, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration at the time. that they still experience physical and mental distress and trauma as a result of their treatment in Guantánamo Bay, including permanent headaches, nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Factsheet: The History and Evolution of Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Factsheet: The Human Cost of Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, FACTSHEET: Legal Challenges to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp. The report uses firsthand accounts, internal Bush administration memos, prisoners’ memories and the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report to analyze the interrogation program. After reviewing twenty frequently presented examples of the program’s successes, the report found that all were “wrong in fundamental respects.” Furthermore, journalists have, that inaccurate coerced evidence obtained during this program, and from. Lieutenant Richard Zuley, a Chicago police detective in the Navy Reserve, worked as a Guantánamo interrogator starting in late 2005. Guantánamo: psychologists who designed CIA torture program to testify This article is more than 1 year old Techniques included waterboarding and other forms of torture ), Mr. Zubaydah, who is not known to have formal art training, drew himself in a hood, shackled in the fetal position and tethered by a chain to a cell bar to constrict his movement. In this drawing, the prisoner portrays himself as lightly clothed. The image contrasts with some others seen in popular culture; an exhibit at the Spy Museum in Washington, for example, shows a guard pouring water onto the face of a prisoner who is neatly clad in what looks like a prison jumpsuit. Psychologist Dr. James Mitchell – architect of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program and a key figure in health professionals’ shameful record of participation in torture – is testifying for the first time before a U.S. military court at Guantánamo Bay. Mr. Zubaydah, 48, drew them this year at Guantánamo for inclusion in a 61-page report, “How America Tortures,” by his lawyer, Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, and some of Mr. Denbeaux’s students. Another shows him with his wrists cuffed to bars so high above his head he is forced on to his tiptoes, with a long wound stitched on his left leg and a howl emerging from his open mouth. While the majority of the men in Guantánamo Bay were never kept in blacksites, they were subjected to torture and severe abuses at Guantánamo Bay military prison. Restraints hold down his wounded thigh. IMPACT: A majority of those imprisoned at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp were subjected to various forms of physical and psychological abuse—techniques that were developed by two American psychologists contracted by the CIA to develop its torture program. In each illustration, Mr. Zubaydah — the first person to be subject to the interrogation program approved by President George W. Bush’s administration — portrays the particular techniques as he says they were used on him at a C.I.A. Captives who did not comply with force-feeding had their arms, legs and head restrained in a feeding chair to prevent induced vomiting. Descriptions of the methods began leaking out more than a decade ago, occasionally in wrenching detail but sometimes with little more than stick-figure depictions of what prisoners went through. This is a torture method … The United States government explicitly sanctioned this torture in the infamous 2002 “torture memos,” drafted by John Yoo, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration at the time. had described as a large wound in his thigh, and he tried to balance his weight on the other leg. The men and boys imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay have frequently engaged in hunger strikes in order to protest their detention and treatment. The torture included but was not limited to waterboarding, sexual harassment and abuse, physical abuse, and sleep deprivation. The former Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali was freed without charge on 9 July 2004, after two and a half years internment. Those who were subjected to these feedings, that they are extremely painful, traumatic, have caused bleeding, vomiting, and fainting, and were sometimes used as, have strongly condemned force-feeding as cruel, degrading, inhumane treatment, and a violation of human rights. had said it would not deprive Mr. Zubaydah of sleep for “more than 11 days at a time.”, In the Seton Hall study, Mr. Zubaydah recounted being deprived of sleep for “maybe two or three weeks or even more.”, “It felt like an eternity,” he added, “to the point that I found myself falling asleep despite the water being thrown at me by the guard.”. The contract was terminated in 2009 under the Obama Administration, by which point Mitchell, Jessen and Associates had received $81 million. lied about both its effectiveness and its brutality — the final chapter of the black sites has yet to be written. At Guantánamo Bay, Torture Apologists Take Refuge in Empty Code Words and Euphemisms “Don’t be fooled by ‘enhanced interrogation,’” torture architect James Mitchell told the court. of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrad-ing treatment (CIDT) the right to full rehabilitation under international law, including those still detained at the facility at Guantánamo Bay. “Long hours went by while I was standing in that position,” he told his lawyers. In late 2005 Guantánamo authorities began using restraint chairs to hold men they force-fed. contract psychologists to create the now-outlawed program that would use violence, isolation and sleep deprivation on more than 100 men in secret sites, some described as dungeons, staffed by secret guards and medical officers. put its prisoners on liquid diets in its program of so-called learned helplessness. The torture techniques, approved by the George W. Bush administration, were used by the CIA as part of the rendition, detention, and interrogation program from 2002 to 2008. prisons and at Guantánamo. It shows the prisoner’s captor tightly winding a towel around his neck as he smashes the back of his head against what Mr. Zubaydah recalled was a wooden wall covering a cement wall. Zuley’s interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi was described by a former Guantánamo Bay official as illegal, immoral, ineffective, and unconstitutional, and it eventually led to numerous false confessions by Slahi. An inmate at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is still being tortured, Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, says. 5 Most Disturbing Interrogation Methods In Guantanamo Bay 5 Musical Torture. by a former Guantánamo Bay official as illegal, immoral, ineffective, and unconstitutional, and it eventually led to numerous false confessions by Slahi. applied an approved torture technique called “cramped confinement.”, two C.I.A. The former director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was briefly the head of the CIA blacksite in Thailand and may have also briefly been in charge of a blacksite at Guantánamo Bay military prison itself. He’s no Al Qaeda mastermind, but, even today, he’s virtually a prisoner. Those formerly imprisoned still experience physical and psychological distress and trauma as a result of their treatment in Guantánamo Bay. He was the first person known to be waterboarded by the C.I.A. Musical torture is a very common psychological torture technique. These memos attempted to give legal justification to the torture program and argued that, while the techniques used “may amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, they do not produce pain or suffering of the necessary intensity to meet the definition of torture.” Pain severe enough to be considered torture would be “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” Additionally, in 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began the process of, the approved list of interrogation techniques in the Army Field Manual. He was captured in a gun battle in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March 2002, gravely injured, including a bad wound to his left thigh, and was sent to the C.I.A.’s overseas prison network. Lieutenant Richard Zuley, a Chicago police detective in the Navy Reserve, worked as a Guantánamo interrogator starting in late 2005. These interrogations involved the use of torture techniques similar to those he would later use at Guantánamo Bay: prolonged shackling, threats against the detained person’s family members, and coerced confessions. According to the medical code of ethics, as long as the strikers are medically, and informed of the possible consequences of their actions, they have the right to strike. contract psychologist who devised the techniques with a colleague, John Bruce Jessen, said walling was “discombobulating” and meant to stir up a prisoner’s inner ears. He and his comrades were told that … Those who were subjected to these feedings report that they are extremely painful, traumatic, have caused bleeding, vomiting, and fainting, and were sometimes used as punishment for taking part in hunger strikes. A photograph of him early during his time at Guantánamo shows him wearing an eye patch after the removal of an injured eye. The, of the military commissions council set up by the Bush administration have all concluded that the men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay were tortured by the U.S. military. Despite the fact that they had no experience in interrogations and no expertise on al-Qaeda, they began working with the CIA in developing the program in 2002. “The very strong pain,” he said, “made me scream unconsciously.”. … After an examination of some of the torture methods used on these detainees, while they were in the custody of the CIA and arguably afterwards, it goes on However, there is a, among intelligence officials, military officers, and neuroscientists that torture does not provide credible or valuable intelligence. According to a report in the Guardian, even before arriving at Guantánamo Zuley was praised for his ability to obtain confessions from subjects. The Senate Intelligence Committee study of the C.I.A. Mr. Zubaydah’s self-portrait also shows a design detail not present in most depictions — a drop-down hinge to tilt the prisoner’s head. Extreme isolation is another term for solitary confinement. Share. According to some reports, Abdel al-Rahim al-Hashiri was waterboarded three times during the time Haspel was the base commander in Thailand. A Chicago detective who led one of the most shocking acts of torture ever conducted at Guantánamo Bay was responsible for implementing a disturbingly similar, years-long regime of brutality to elicit murder confessions from minority Americans. at Guantánamo are entitled to test the lawfulness of their detention in the federal courts.11 In November 2004, District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that counsel for the prisoners could meet with their clients at Guantánamo.12 Since then, more than 450 pro … Risks of force-feeding include infection, pneumonia, collapsed lungs, heart failure, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A 2014 U.S. Senate intelligence report found the torture program was ineffective in its stated goal of obtaining military intelligence. In this drawing, Mr. Zubaydah is shaved, nude, shackled in such a way he cannot stand up and, by his account, is sitting on a bucket meant to serve as a toilet. The C.I.A. He attempted to obtain confessions and convictions regardless of the consequences, a philosophy shared at Guantánamo Bay. Published here for the first time, they are gritty and highly personal depictions that put flesh, bones and emotion on what until now had sometimes been portrayed in popular culture in sanitized or inaccurate ways: the so-called enhanced interrogations techniques used by the United States in secret overseas prisons during a feverish pursuit of Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. What the C.I.A.’s Torture Program Looked Like to the Tortured, An image drawn by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, shows how the C.I.A. During his career with the Chicago Police Department, Zuley conducted police interrogations primarily on Black Chicagoans. They are sketches drawn in captivity by the Guantánamo Bay prisoner known as Abu Zubaydah, self-portraits of the torture he was subjected to during the four years he was held in secret prisons by the C.I.A. The Red Cross, the United Nations, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a member of the military commissions council set up by the Bush administration have all concluded that the men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay were tortured by the U.S. military. Although Navy lawyers argued that the new techniques were abusive and illegal, Rumsfeld officially approved most of the new techniques in April of 2003. found the torture program was ineffective in its stated goal of obtaining military intelligence. This torture included sexual harassment and threats of rape, threats with dogs, extended solitary confinement, light and sound manipulation, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, physical abuse such as beatings or being put into “stress positions,” forced shaving, and religious abuse such as mocking the call to prayer and abuse of the Qur’an. Another shows him … While her nomination was controversial (over one hundred retired military officers released a letter calling her unfit for the position due to her role in the torture program), she was confirmed in 2018 and led the agency until January 2021. In 2004, Steve Wood was deployed to Guantánamo Bay, as a member of the Oregon National Guard. In a 2017 deposition as part of a lawsuit that was eventually settled, James E. Mitchell, a former C.I.A. James Mitchell, one of the architects and practitioners of waterboarding, still defends the interrogation method, which involves strapping human beings to … This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates was founded in 2002 by American psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, who would become known as the “architects” of the CIA torture program. Yet another depicts a captor smacking his head against a wall. The former director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, was briefly the, of the CIA blacksite in Thailand and may have also, been in charge of a blacksite at Guantánamo Bay military prison itself. In each of the nine cases, GTMO detainees alleged abusive interrogation methods that are consistent with torture as defined by the UN Convention Against Torture as well as the more restrictive US definition of torture that was operational at the time. The small box is similar to the one on display at the Spy Museum where, during a visit, children could be seen crawling inside. IMPACT: Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, located in Cuba, was chosen as the site of a detention center due to its uncertain legal status—allowing the U.S. government to argue that those detained at the base were... read the complete article, IMPACT: Guantánamo Bay military prison is a site of egregious and ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the United States government. They demonstrate how, more than a decade after the Obama administration outlawed the program — and then went on to partly declassify a Senate study that found the C.I.A. According to the medical code of ethics, as long as the strikers are medically competent and informed of the possible consequences of their actions, they have the right to strike. The U.S. Department of Defense seeks to try to elude the prohibition of torture and thereby legitimizing the enhanced methods of interrogations. The three alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging, and religious persecution being committed by U.S. forces at Guantánamo Bay. According to a report in the, , even before arriving at Guantánamo Zuley was praised for his ability to obtain confessions from subjects. in 2018 and led the agency until January 2021. Other interrogators at Guantánamo Bay prison have faced scrutiny for their actions both in and outside of the prison.