We don't torture people (except for the people we torture)

[alonzomourning23]

Almost 100 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, according to the BBC's Newsnight programme.



A group called Human Rights First obtained the figures.

Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides, the programme said.

The Pentagon told Newsnight it had not seen the report but took allegations of maltreatment "very seriously" and would prosecute if necessary.

The report defines the 34 cases classified as homicides as "caused by intentional or reckless behaviour".

It says another 11 cases have been deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 prisoners were tortured to death.

But despite this, charges are rare and sentences are light, the report says.

Investigation call

UK MP Bob Marshall-Andrews told the Press Association that the report confirmed "in statistical terms the appalling evidence already available in footage".

"If it is indeed systemic, then the responsibility for it must go right to the top, and that would apply to both British and American governments," he said.

A spokesman for Amnesty International UK called for a probe into the deaths in custody.

"Deaths in custody during the war on terror are a real matter of concern to us and we want to see the US and its allies allowing a full independent and impartial investigation into these deaths, as well as mounting incidents of alleged torture and other mistreatment," he said.

He said Amnesty had raised the issue of "overly lenient sentences" for those found guilty of mistreating prisoners.
Last week, an Australian TV channel broadcast previously unpublished images showing apparent US abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4738008.stm

 

[mykevermin]

On a related-yet-unrelated note, someone on NPR claimed yesterday that the UN designates force-feeding (in the event of a hunger strike, like the one we have at Guantanamo Bay) is considered torture. In their logic, the prisoner has a right to take their own life.

I have a real hard time swallowing that, yet I understand their point of view. This doesn't necessarily mean it is torture, but I can see where they're coming from.

 

[alonzomourning23]

I heard tha too, but I think it had to do with the way they went about it. They were restrained in chairs for hours and force fed through tubes. Supposedly it was painful. Then there's this guys account:

One detainee, a Kuwaiti named Fawzi al-Odah, told his attorney this month that he had stopped his five-month hunger strike under threats of brutal physical abuse. Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer in Washington who has represented 12 Kuwaitis interned at Guantanamo Bay, said al-Odah described guards mixing laxatives into the liquid formula given to about 40 prisoners through nose tubes, causing them to defecate on themselves.

Wilner said al-Odah told him that, on Jan. 9, an officer read what he said was an order from Guantanamo commander Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood stating that hunger strikers would be strapped into a chair and force-fed with thick nasal tubes that would be inserted and removed twice a day. After hearing a neighboring prisoner scream in pain and tell him not to go through it, al-Odah reluctantly ceased his hunger strike, Wilner said.

Officials have been forcefeeding detainees since August, but they started leaving the long nasal tubes in place in September after detainees complained that having them inserted and removed twice a day caused intense pain, bleeding, vomiting and fainting, Wilner said.

In January, he said, after rough treatment resumed and hunger strikers were left strapped in the chair in their own excretions, most gave up their protest.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/13/20060213-A1-00.html

All true or did he make a lot of it up? Who knows but I don't trust the u.s. enough to dismiss it, and I don't trust him enough to believe it.

 

[Cheese]