BlachanLab

The ICRC’s confidential report on the treatment of detainees by the Bush administration is now available here.

The report’s myriad sections are a who’s who of infringements upon human dignity, with such gems as “Suffocation by water”, “Beating and kicking”, “Beatings by use of a collar”, “Prolonged nudity” and “Sleep deprivation”.

An excellent summary of some of the contents of the report are available here in an article by Mark Danner. His work on uncovering the shameful history of torture under George W. Bush cannot be understated. His assessment makes for fascinating and frightening reading.

An excerpt:

One works the imagination trying to picture what it was like in this otherworldly place: blackness in place of vision. Silence—or “sometimes” loud music—in place of sounds of life. Shackles, together sometimes with gloves, in place of the chance to reach, touch, feel. One senses metal on wrist and ankle, cotton against eyes, cloth across face, shit and piss against skin. On “some occasions detainees were transported lying flat on the floor of the plane…with their hands cuffed behind their backs,” causing them “severe pain and discomfort,” as they were moved from one unknown location to another.

And several Arab nations were complicit in the torture of detainees.

Shame on us.

The BBC has a story on a report by Cage Prisoners, “which campaigns on terror detention”, pointing out that British intelligence involvement in the torturing of detainees was “widespread”.

Full report here. Give it a read.

Excerpt from the foreword:

It did not require an education in international humanitarian law to know that what we were seeing was unlawful; instinctive moral revulsion precisely mirrored what is the law. This was the unlawful trafficking of human beings; it was not a manifestation of the Geneva Convention at work, it was neither deportation nor extradition, far worse, it was transport from a world and to a world outside the reach of the law, and intended to remain so.

The report describes specific cases where detainees were sent to other countries to be tortured. Who’s on the shameful list?

Egypt. Jordan. Syria. The United Arab Emirates. Pakistan.

When will we win back our souls?