Torture

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Torture of Prisoners in Custody

Torture of prisoners in custody is one of the hidden evils of the Bush administration 's War on Terror ' What made it very atrocious was that it exposed the hypocrisy of the said campaign . Despite its being the world 's bastion of freedom , democracy and human rights , the United States is practicing torture on its political prisoners . It is usually carried out under the guise of interrogating suspected terrorists

Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are the most recent scandals that

unmasked the aforementioned act of violence . After the September 11 , 2001 bombings , the US Department of Defense detained more than 600 male prisoners from 42 countries in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba . Some of the prisoners were said to have been as young as 13 years old . They were considered as unlawful combatants ' in to make the regulations of the Geneva Convention inapplicable to them (The New York Times , n . pag

The Guantanamo detainees were imprisoned without charge or legal representation . They were also subjected to various torture methods including starvation , exposure to loud music and extreme temperatures removal of clothing , hooding during transportation and interrogation and exploitation of individual phobias (Time , n . pag . Prisoners who conducted hunger strikes to protest against ill-treatment were revived through force-feeding . Tubes were pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs , resulting in bleeding and nausea (Rose , n . pag

A Red Cross report that was disclosed to the Wall Street Journal in May 2004 revealed shockingly abject conditions and inhumane interrogation methods being used in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq . These findings were later confirmed by the sworn statements of Abu Ghraib detainees that were published in the Washington Post . The Abu Ghraib scandal was further publicized through photographs of soldiers torturing prisoners that were broadcasted or published in television shows and publications such as 60 Minutes II and The New Yorker . Some of these photographs showed naked prisoners being forced to copulate with each other (MSN Encarta , n . pag

What shocked the international community even more was that torture in these prisons was executed with official approval . In 2002 , US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA consulted the Justice Department 's Office of Legal Counsel regarding the definition of illegal interrogation methods . Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee replied that an interrogation can only be regarded as torture if an interrogator inflicts pain (that accompanies ) serious physical injury , such as organ failure , impairment of bodily function or even death (Time , n . pag . This response is very chilling , as the law was altered to accommodate actions that are otherwise considered as torture

Military officers at Guantanamo followed suit a few months later Frustrated over the lack of relevant information being obtained from prisoners , they sought Washington 's approval of the use of harsher interrogation methods . Washington readily obliged - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in December 2002 16 additional interrogation procedures to be used in Guantanamo . Some of...