Grim Details Emerge in New Detainee Abuse Scandal
The New York Times uncovers the story of a top-secret detention center in Baghdad where American jailers "used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball."
Truthdig says
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The New York Times uncovers the story of a top-secret detention center in Baghdad where American jailers “used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.”
N.Y. Times
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As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein’s former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government’s torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.
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As the clock counts down to the new year, another clock will continue ticking, counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds since May 23, 2013, the day President Barack Obama promised to free all those prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay who have been cleared for release.
American soldiers say Navy SEALs and members of the Afghan Local Police physically abused detainees, an offense The New York Times calls “among the most serious” that “an American service member can commit." And instead of disciplining the offenders, the military promoted three of them.
Military trials will resume at America's notorious island gulag. The president failed during the last two years to shut down the detention facility, which he says helps America's enemies recruit, and move trials to the civilian justice system. (more)
Indian police and security forces have allegedly tortured hundreds of Kashmiris as WikiLeaked evidence shows the use of electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation against detainees from 2005 to 2007.
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