"What took place in that Iraqi prison (Abu Ghraib) was the wrongdoing of a few, and does not reflect the character of the more than 200,000 military personnel who have served in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom." --George W.Bush
Not exactly, as you will see from the following excerpts of material I've received over the past few days from Preston Peet, Ted Welch and others.
Terror Cells:
Abuse of Iraqi Detainees Is an Echo of The Cruelties Inflicted on U.S. Inmates
By Alan Elsner
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 9, 2004; Page D01
Americans from President Bush down have been shocked by reports of abuse of detainees in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and many would agree with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that such treatment is "un-American." But U.S. human rights activists say there is much evidence that similar abuse regularly occurs in our own prisons, without drawing nearly as much public outrage.
"Wanton violence and malicious assaults are far from unknown in U.S. prisons. Just look at local newspapers around the nation and you will often see reports of lawsuits, settlements and internal investigations documenting the unacceptable use of force by prison staff. The problem is, they don't get much national attention," said Jamie Fellner, U.S. program director for Human Rights Watch.
One problem, Fellner said, is that no central body collects data on how many inmates are assaulted by staff in U.S. prisons and jails. Additionally, prisons are closed institutions that operate without public oversight by the media or independent monitors. Still, she said, the amount of anecdotal evidence of abuse is enormous.
For example, in September 1996, guards at the Brazoria County jail in Texas staged a drug raid on inmates that was videotaped for training purposes. The tape showed inmates forced to strip and lie on the ground. A police dog attacked several prisoners; the tape clearly showed one being bitten on the leg. Guards prodded prisoners with stun guns and forced them to crawl along the ground. Then they dragged injured inmates face down back to their cells. The county and other defendants eventually settled a lawsuit for $2.2 million.
Ex-Iraq interrogator says many prisoners innocent
Fri 7 May, 2004 05:44
LONDON (Reuters) - A former U.S. interrogator at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail says that many of its prisoners are innocent Iraqis, picked up at random by U.S. troops and questioned by underqualified intelligence officers.
Former military intelligence officer Torin Nelson said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper on Friday many of the detainees at Abu Ghraib were "innocent of any acts against the coalition".
"I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, 'the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him'," Nelson said.
Nelson, who served as a contractor at Abu Ghraib last year, said abuses were partly a result of an over-reliance on private firms so eager to meet demand for their services that they sent staff ill-prepared to deal with intelligence work.
"They're under so much pressure to fill slots quickly... if you're in such a hurry to get bodies, you end up with cooks and truck drivers doing intelligence work," Nelson told the paper.
The innocence of some detainees made them more likely to be abused because interrogators refused to believe they had been rounded up arbitrarily and regarded them as "tough targets" to be broken, he said.
Nelson, who resigned from his job in February, is listed as a witness in the official military report into the abuse scandal at the prison, the Guardian said.
Army Discloses Criminal Inquiry on Prison Abuse
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 5, 2004
In the last 16 months, the Army has conducted more than 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths already determined to have been criminal homicides, the Army's vice chief of staff said Tuesday.
To date, the most severe penalties in any of the cases were less-than-honorable discharges for five Army soldiers, military officials said. No one has been sentenced to prison, they said.
Sy Hersh on Diane Rheim Show (NPR) (none / 0)
by Titian on Tue May 4th, 2004 at 15:01:00 GMT
In response to an email question asking whether women at Abu Gharib were harmed or mistreated, he described that Abu Gharib has a women/juvenile section separate from the men and that there was "video of terribly shocking things being done to young boys. We haven't seen the end of this."
Torture is the Natural Outcome of Bush Policies
The torture pictures are a direct result of convergence of two forces, privatization and establishment of an American Gulag. Both resulted in concentration camps with thousands of prisoners with no legal oversight or obligations. In this illegal, immoral environment, torture isn't unique but a natural outcome.
Since the current leadership in the White House and Defense Department have pushed for privatization and Guantanamo Gulag, it is expected that they will spin and hide their complicity with the torture.
by Jim S on Tue May 4th, 2004 at 16:01:20 GMT
James Taranto writes:
The Washington Post, meanwhile, quotes a former prisoner who says the exercise routine was too demanding and the music was unpleasant:
The black sack the troops placed over his head was removed only briefly during the next nine days of interrogation, conducted by U.S. officials in civilian and military clothes, he said. He was forced to do knee bends until he collapsed, he recalled, and black marks still ring his wrists from the pinch of plastic handcuffs. Rest was made impossible by loudspeakers blaring, over and over, the Beastie Boys' rap anthem, "No Sleep Till Brooklyn."
That some ex-prisoners are bellyaching about trivia does not, of course, mean that all was well in Abu Ghraib. If real abuses are proved, then it's entirely appropriate, as Dan Senor, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, puts it, that "careers will be ended and criminal charges are going to be leveled."Families of the 372nd tormented by stories of POW abuses in Iraq
Attack by Prison Dog Revealed
Videotape shows Youth Authority inmate being bitten while obeying orders, officials say. Assault charges against the guard are sought.
By Jenifer Warren
Times Staff Writer
May 7, 2004
SACRAMENTO — California Youth Authority officials revealed Thursday that they were pushing prosecutors to file criminal assault charges against an officer for allowing his police dog to attack an inmate who was not resisting.
Josh Marshall
An interesting tidbit from this evening's edition of The (must-read) Nelson Report ...
We can contribute a second hand anecdote to newspaper stories on rising concern, last year, from Secretary of State Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage about Administration attitudes and the risks they might entail: according to eye witnesses to debate at the highest levels of the Administration...the highest levels...whenever Powell or Armitage sought to question prisoner treatment issues, they were forced to endure what our source characterizes as "around the table, coarse, vulgar, frat-boy bully remarks about what these tough guys would do if THEY ever got their hands on prisoners...."
-- let's be clear: our source is not alleging "orders" from the White House. Our source is pointing out that, as we said in the Summary, a fish rots from its head. The atmosphere created by Rumsfeld's controversial decisions was apparently aided and abetted by his colleagues in their callous disregard for the implications of the then-developing situation, and by their ridicule of the only combat veterans at the top of this Administration.
Tough guys ...
Detective's Sister Says Police Bragged About Brutality
Apr 1, 2004 10:46 am US/Central
CHICAGO (AP) There are new allegations of torture against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.
In a sworn videotaped statement, the sister of a former police detective, Ellen Pryweller, said that Burge and her brother bragged about beating and torturing murder suspects.
”That they beat the (profanity) out of them. That they throw them against walls...they burn them...smothered them poke them do something to some guys testicles,” Pryweller
A special prosecutor was appointed in 2002 to investigate dozens of allegations that Burge and detectives under his command beat and tortured murder suspects to obtain confessions.
Lack of training, stress are blamed in abuse of Iraqis The Army Reserve unit based near here - whose service in Iraq made many of its members hometown heroes - had boasted six months ago of its credentials for a new security assignment at a prison west of Baghdad. "We are relying heavily on our soldiers with correctional [officer] experience," said their newsletter, published in the local newspaper. "The regular Army can't touch us with experience." But months later, the prison detail was disgraced in news reports across the world. The Army said yesterday that 14 of the 17 soldiers implicated in an investigation of abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison are from the 372nd. They face either criminal or administrative charges. There is a real crisis of leadership in Iraq -- with double standards and double speak on human rights, Amnesty International said today. "The latest evidence of torture and ill-treatment emerging from Abu Ghraib prison will exacerbate an already fragile situation. The prison was notorious under Saddam Hussein -- it should not be allowed to become so again. Iraq has lived under the shadow of torture for far too long. The Coalition leadership must send a clear signal that torture will not be tolerated under any circumstances and that the Iraqi people can now live free of such brutal and degrading practices," Amnesty International said. "There must be a fully independent, impartial and public investigation into all allegations of torture. Nothing less will suffice. If Iraq is to have a sustainable and peaceful future, human rights must be a central component of the way forward. The message must be sent loud and clear that those who abuse human rights will be held accountable. "Our extensive research in Iraq suggests that this is not an isolated incident. It is not enough for the USA to react only once images have hit the television screens". Amnesty International has received frequent reports of torture or other ill-treatment by Coalition Forces during the past year. Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told Amnesty International that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities. Amnesty International is calling for investigations into alleged abuses by Coalition Forces to be conducted by a body that is competent, impartial and independent, and seen to be so, and that any findings of such investigations be made public. In addition reparation, including compensation, must be paid to the victims or to their families. For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org Doing something about prison rape Published in signonsandiego.com Rodney Hulin didn't deserve what happened to him. Rodney was 16 and small for his age when he committed a minor crime, setting a Dumpster on fire in an alley. Charged with arson, he was sentenced to an adult prison, where he was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted. Officials ignored his written pleas for help. Prison staff brushed off his mother's attempts to protect her child. Unable to endure a life of constant torture, Rodney hanged himself in January 1996 – 75 days after entering prison. Two months ago, in July, Congress passed a law that could help prevent others from facing sexual abuse behind bars. The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 won unanimous approval through courageous bipartisan efforts in both the House and Senate. President Bush signed it into law on Sept. 4. This law is desperately needed. Approximately one in five male inmates in the United States has faced forced or pressured sexual contact in custody, according to studies on the subject by researchers such as Cindy Struckman-Johnson at the University of South Dakota. One in 10 has been raped. For women, whose abusers are often corrections officers, the rates of sexual assault are as high as one in four in some facilities. Like Rodney, many victims of rape are young, nonviolent offenders who are inexperienced in the ways of prison life. Like Rodney, many victims have found that corrections officials ignore pleas for help or even retaliate against inmates who file complaints. And like Rodney, many victims have been devastated by the physical and psychological damage they have suffered. Victims of rape behind bars have been left beaten, bloodied and even dead. They have contracted sexually transmissible diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis A and B. And they have suffered from crippling depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. No one should have to endure sexual violence, especially not in correctional facilities where public officials have near-total control over the lives of those they are charged with protecting. A broad and diverse coalition of civil and human-rights organizations, religious groups and criminal-justice experts support the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 because it is a responsible effort to begin addressing one of the most widely ignored and trivialized abuses of human rights in this country. The act calls for gathering national statistics about the problem, developing standards for states to use to address prison rape, providing grants to support state and local programs to prevent and punish prison rape, and creating a review panel to hold states accountable for making progress. Implemented conscientiously, the Prison Rape Elimination Act will help move us toward a safer, more humane era in American corrections. The act's reach should extend to all detention facilities that confine adults and juveniles, including those that house immigration detainees. The commission that creates the new standards and the review panel that assesses state compliance must be staffed with knowledgeable, experienced reformers. And all those who commit rape must be held accountable for their actions, especially correctional staff who grossly abuse their authority by sexually abusing inmates. Prison rape will not be wiped out with legislation alone. In addition to effective laws, we need mental health services for survivors of abuse, lawsuits aimed at reform and greater compassion on the part of the public. We need to recognize that none of the more than 2 million people now held in U.S. jails and prisons was sentenced to be raped. Addressing this problem will benefit all of us. Sexual assault behind bars spreads disease, promotes cycles of violence, undermines the legitimacy of our justice system, violates basic rights and destroys lives. Rodney deserved better than that. We as a society deserve better, too. Male guards continued to have unsupervised access to women prisoners or detainees in women's prisons and local jails. There were allegations of sexual abuse of female prisoners by male staff in states including California, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina and West Virginia. Draft legislation was introduced in New York to ban pat-down searches of women prisoners by male staff. Reports of ill-treatment of inmates at Wayne County Jail, West Virginia, included claims that women prisoners were made to parade partially naked in front of male inmates, forced to undergo strip searches by male guards, fondled by male officers or watched while dressing. One prisoner said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with a guard who later resigned. There were also allegations of assaults by guards against both male and female inmates and the abusive use of pepper spray. The results of a Justice Department investigation into allegations of federal criminal civil rights violations by guards at the jail were not known by the end of the year. By Dahr Jamail In one case I reported on last winter, a late night raid on a house found soldiers breaking the door to the home of two Baghdad University professors, even though they were offered free access. The home was destroyed, furniture broken and torn apart, bags of rice dumped on the kitchen floor, and the husband and son detained. The next day soldiers revisited the home, I was told, excusing themselves for having had poor information. The husband and son remain in detention, whereabouts unknown to the family. Earlier in this month, for instance, the Army conducted an early morning raid searching for weapons in the Abu Hanifa Mosque in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad. The fruits for crashing through two gates with tanks, for driving a Humvee over and destroying three tons of food-aid stockpiled for Falluja, for holding 210 people inside the mosque at gunpoint, for smashing through classroom doors and for shooting up walls and ceilings? Not one bullet. When human rights organizations estimate that at least half of the 13,000 detainees in the horrid, overflowing Abu Ghraib prison had no affiliation with the armed resistance prior to being arrested by occupation forces, one can imagine how they, their families and friends now view the Anglo-American occupation of their country. NEWSROOM-L archives – May 2004, week 1, Topic 12. Military Reprimands John French One must read carefully the statement that several US military received the most severe written punishment the army doles out. In fact these are administrative actions, not criminal charges, which the army has now neatly sidestepped by using the local commander's decision to make it an administrative offense. The punishment is so minimal as to defy belief for any serious breach of the UCMJ. Basically, the most one can get is extra duty for a month or so. Jules Siegel I think we have to be careful to remember where the responsibility lay before making any quick judgments about punishment. While I agree that these soldiers should not have cooperated in obviously immoral acts, they were ordered to do so. Those who issued the illegal orders deserve to be punished severely. I'm not optimistic about that happening, but my impression after having read as much of the reporting as I've been able to stomach is that the soldiers are being scapegoated. If so, the punishment they are receiving is not all that unreasonable. What they really need now is psychiatric evaluation and counseling. The officers should go to prison if guilty, however. John French [Excerpts] I am being careful, Jules. A major thrust of an administrative action is to shut the door to criminal charges for the behavior specified in the reprimand. The reprimands themselves are not made public. The media also reports that the officers are not under criminal investigation. So these un-named officers remain unscathed, for whatever complicity they might have, whether active or tacit. Another comment is that such reprimands, while certainly reducing chances of future promotions, do not prevent them, as some media stories imply. It all depends on the commanding officer at promotion time. All of these officers will serve out their time and get their full veteran's benefits if they want to. ******************************************************** May 8, 2004 ABUSE OF IRAQI PRISONERS NO SURPRISE by Steve Kubby, National Director The revelations of abuse in Iraqi prisons comes as no surprise to medical marijuana patients in the US. Those of us who have been raided and jailed by America's Drug War understand exactly what Iraqis face at the hands of their US captors, many of whom work as police, narks and prison guards back in the US. President Bush says he is "disgusted" over the abuse of Iraqis, but when sick and dying patients in Santa Cruz obtained a court order to keep the DEA from raiding and abusing them any further, the Bush administration dropped everything and filed a Supreme Court appeal within four hours. My family and I are still recovering from the humiliation and mental torture we received when we were illegally raided and jailed in Placer County in 1999. Although the media reported on our abuse, the Placer Sheriff's office investigated and issued an official report that concluded, "it never happened." That was the last anyone ever heard from the mainstream media about our abuse at the hands of Placer County. No one ever reported that everything we said happened to us was later confirmed at our trial, under oath, by witnesses. Despite eye-witness testimony of police abuse and perjury at our trial, no one has been held accountable for faking a DEA report to obtain the search warrant, nearly killing me, forcing me to vomit in front of prisoners, exposing us to prolonged periods of freezing temperatures, or taunting Michele over whether I was alive or dead. Despite our acquittal on all marijuana charges, the police still hold all of our seized money and possessions, computers, software and computer records, personal photos, clothing and signed books from fellow authors. Like the digital photos taken by guards of Iraqi prisoners being abused, all our most private possessions are now trophies for those who raided and abused us. Five years later, our family still bears scars from what was done to us and I still suffer physically from the blood pressure attacks I suffered during my Placer incarceration. However, we know that many medical marijuana patients who are raided suffer even worse abuse and mental torture. Perhaps now, while prisoner abuse is holding everyone's attention, we can politely point out that the abuse we cannabis patients have suffered is every bit as horrible and painful to us as what we are seeing in Iraq. Until our rights as medical marijuana patients are respected and upheld, we will all be Iraqis. http://www.spr.org This is an organization I rescued in 1983, directed until 1994, and have been president of since 1998. Yes, I am a survivor of this barbarism. Memos from my FBI files indicate I'm not the only peace activist to receive such treatment at the hands of One of the "Watergate plumbers" was confined in the same DC jail as Donny in August 1973. He writes about Donny on pages 318-321 in "Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy" (1980). How many more activists raped in confinement is yet unknown. But because Has the United States of America sunk to a new low in depravity, greed, Tom Cahill Subject: Sexual Abuse in Iraq is No Accident Reply-To: Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 11:41:18 -0700 Organization: Stop Prisoner Rape Sexual Abuse in Iraq is No Accident The expression on Private Lynndie England's face is haunting. Posed next But what's really behind England's seemingly casual gesture? In the The new reports from Iraq include allegations that coalition soldiers These are troubling events, but they didn't happen by accident. The Sexual violence is uniquely dehumanizing. Those who perpetrate this kind And the psychological consequences shouldn't be underestimated. Feelings In particular, many male victims of sexual violence report feeling that Some observers have noted that nudity, forced masturbation and humiliating Approximately one in five male inmates in the United States has faced This form of abuse reared its ugly head when police officers sodomized With this pattern of abuse so common at home, it's almost unsurprising But, whether it happens in Iraq or in the U.S., sexual abuse is a form of Lara Stemple Alex Coolman ================================== In 2000 the UN delivered a severe public rebuke to the United States It also said female detainees are "very often held in humiliating and By Preston Peet October 18, 2000 The UN 'Committee Against Torture' (UNCAT) has for the first time issued a report critical of the US and the many incidents of what can only be called torture that seem to be official policy against certain segments of US society. In its conclusions and recommendations (released May 15th, 2000), UNCAT very firmly called attention to the high number of reports in the US of "police ill-treatment of civilians, ill treatment in prisons, (including inter-prisoner violence)," calling special attention to the fact that much of the police violence seems to be discriminatory in nature, and "alleged cases of sexual assault on female detainees and prisoners by law enforcement officers, and prison personnel," stressing that women are often held in humiliating and degrading circumstances. Also noted were the "excessively harsh 'super-maximum' prison regime," chain-gangs, incarcerating minors with adults in the regular prison population, and "the use of electro-shock devices and restraint chairs as methods of constraint," that contravene the Convention Against Torture, signed by the US in 1985, and ratified in 1994. UNCAT considered reports during their now closed 24th Session, "submitted by Poland, Portugal, China, Paraguay, El Salvador, the United States, the Netherlands and Slovenia, and delivered its conclusions and recommendations on the reports. The eight countries also sent Government delegations to appear before the Committee's ten independent experts to answer questions in keeping with their obligations as State parties to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. One hundred and nineteen countries have ratified the treaty." There are plenty in the US that can agree with some of the Committee's findings. Take Stun Belts for instance. Ronnie Hawkins was in a Long Beach, California court on June 30th, 1998 for sentencing, convicted that April of stealing US$200 dollars worth of aspirin. This was Hawkins' 'third strike': he was facing up to 25 years in prison, and was understandably upset. After repeatedly interrupting court proceedings, not with profanities or violence, merely expressing his consternation, Municipal Court Judge Joan Comparet Cassani ordered the bailiff to zap Hawkins with 50 000 volts of electricity with the stun belt around his waist, to shut him up. 'Amnesty International' has gathered many cases similar to this in the US. The pattern of abuse of Iraqi prisoners follows established CIA interrogation techniques Vikram Dodd, Thursday May 6, 2004, The Guardian In Britain the debate about photographs depicting abuse of Iraqi prisoners has centred on their authenticity. In the US there are no doubts about the pictures showing what American soldiers did in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. But the photos raise a larger question. Did a gang of reservists from Virginia hit on ways of mistreating Muslim prisoners to maximise their humiliation all by themselves? President Bush says the photos disgust him. However, there is growing evidence that the abuses in Abu Ghraib were no aberrant act, but a warped product of US policy and the practices of its intelligence community. Abuse allegations against the US have now surfaced in Iraq, Guantánamo, Bagram, in Afghanistan, and even in Gambia, where a British businessman told the Guardian he was threatened with rape and beatings while being questioned by US agents. Part of the interrogating team at Abu Ghraib was from the CIA. There are clues from that organisation's history that it has found ill-treating detainees to be useful in the past. Two CIA interrogation manuals surfaced in 1997 after the Baltimore Sun obtained them under freedom of information laws. Reading them in the context of the pictures from Iraq and accounts from Guantánamo suggests that the advice they contain is still being applied. One, dating from 1983, was written for use in Honduras. Entitled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual", it states: "The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy." Sgt Frederick says detainees at Abu Ghraib were kept in isolation for up to three days in windowless rooms. According to the CIA manual, "a person's sense of identity depends upon the continuity in his surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others ... Detention should be planned to enhance ... feelings of being cut off from anything known and reassuring." But the CIA manual can enlighten us further about the scandal at Abu Ghraib. The man on the box would have battled exhaustion from having to stand motionless, driven by fear of an electric shock. And, the manual says, "pain that he feels he is inflicting upon himself is more likely to sap his resistance. If he is required to maintain a rigid position such as standing at attention or sitting on a stool for long periods, the immediate source of discomfort is not the questioner but the subject. After a while, the subject is likely to exhaust his internal motivational strength. Intense pain is likely to produce false confessions, fabricated to avoid additional punishment." The 1983 CIA manual draws heavily from the 1963 "Kubark manual", named after the codeword the CIA gave itself. It explains what the US military may have hoped to gain by sexually humiliating prisoners. "The effectiveness of most of the non-coercive techniques depends upon their unsettling effect. The interrogation situation is in itself disturbing to most people encountering it for the first time. The aim is to enhance this effect, to disrupt radically familiar emotional and psychological associations ... When this aim is achieved, resistance is seriously impaired. There is an interval ... of suspended animation, a kind of psychological shock or paralysis. It is caused by a traumatic or sub-traumatic experience which explodes, as it were, the world that is familiar to the subject as well as his image of himself within that world. At this moment the source is far likelier to comply." It remains to be seen what kind of disciplinary or legal action the Abu Ghraib interrogators and their superiors will face. As Sgt Frederick wrote in an email: "They always said that shit rolls downhill, and guess who is at the bottom?" And if George Bush is unsure what US intelligence is capable of, he can always ask his dad. The first President Bush used to be head of the CIA. Torture's back in the news, courtesy of those lurid pictures of exultant Americans laughing as they torture their Iraqi captives in Abu Ghraib prison run by the US military outside Baghdad. Apparently it takes electrodes and naked bodies piled in a simulated orgy to tickle America's moral nerve ends. Kids maimed by cluster bombs just don't do it any more. But torture's nothing new. One of the darkest threads in postwar US imperial history has been the CIA's involvement with torture, as instructor, practitioner or contractor. Since its inception the CIA has taken a keen interest in torture, avidly studying Nazi techniques and protecting their exponents such as Klaus Barbie. The CIA's official line is that torture is wrong and is ineffective. It is indeed wrong. On countless occasions it has been appallingly effective. Remember Dan Mitrione, kidnapped and killed by Uruguay's Tupamaros and portrayed by Yves Montand in Costa-Gavras's film State of Siege? In the late 1960s Mitrione worked for the US Office of Public Safety, part of the Agency for International Development. In Brazil, so A.J. Langguth (a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon) related in his book Hidden Terrors, Mitrione was among the US advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them. In Uruguay, according to the former chief of police intelligence, Mitrione helped "professionalize" torture as a routine measure and advised on psychological techniques such as playing tapes of women and children screaming that the prisoner's family was being tortured. In 2000 the UN delivered a severe public rebuke to the United States for its record on preventing torture and degrading punishment. A 10-strong panel of experts highlighted what it said were Washington's breaches of the agreement ratified by the United States in 1994. The UN Committee Against Torture, which monitors international compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture, has called for the abolition of electric-shock stun belts (1000 in use in the U.S.) and restraint chairs on prisoners, as well as an end to holding children in adult jails. It also said female detainees are "very often held in humiliating and degrading circumstances" and expressed concern over alleged cases of sexual assault by police and prison officers. The panel criticized the excessively harsh regime in maximum security prisons, the use of chain gangs in which prisoners perform manual labor while shackled together, and the number of cases of police brutality against racial minorities. So far as rape is concerned, because of the rape factories more conventionally known as the U.S. prison system, there are estimates that twice as many men as women are raped in the U.S. each year. A Human Rights Watch report in April of 2001 cited a December 2000 Prison Journal study based on a survey of inmates in seven men's prison facilities in four states. The results showed that 21 percent of the inmates had experienced at least one episode of pressured or forced sexual contact since being incarcerated, and at least 7 percent had been raped in their facilities. A 1996 study of the Nebraska prison system produced similar findings, with 22 percent of male inmates reporting that they had been pressured or forced to have sexual contact against their will while incarcerated. Of these, more than 50 percent had submitted to forced anal sex at least once. Extrapolating these findings to the national level gives a total of at least 140,000 inmates who have been raped.
Cumberland stands by 372nd
Despite abuse allegation, residents still support members of local unit
Apr 30, 2004
Morgan State graduate, Va. man among those facing court-martial
Apr 30, 2004
By Ariel Sabar, Gus Sentementes and Jeff Barker
Sun Staff
Originally published April 30, 2004
CUMBERLAND - For months, members of the 372nd Military Police Company harbored a terrible secret.
Iraq: Torture not isolated -- independent investigations vital
By Lara Stemple Wendy Patten and Benjamin Jealous
September 26, 2003
Ill-treatment of women prisoners
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the Bureau's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against the New Left may have set me up to be beaten, gang-raped and otherwise tortured while jailed for civil disobedience in 1968 because of my anti-Vietnam War activities.
the US criminal justice system. Arrested on the grounds of the White House in Washington, DC, at a "Pray-In" to stop the bombing of Cambodia in 1973, Stephen Donaldson, small and white, was placed in an all-Black cell block where he was beaten and gang-raped for two days. After release from the hospital, he went public at a press conference. Donny and I teamed up in 1984 and worked together on this issue till he died in 1994 of AIDS contracted from rape in prison in the early 80s.
of the extreme humiliation of this barbarism, sexual assault must be an excellent way to silence dissidents. Therefore it's my belief that among other "excesses," sexual torture is being taught at the US Army's infamous "School of the Americas." And may I remind you, Faith Fippinger, a human shield in Bagdad during the invasion last year, is currently in prison for "tresspassing" at a demonstration at the School of the Americas late last year.
and lust for power? I don't think so. The USA has been "abusing" the whole planet and even many of its own citizens for decades. Pres. George W. Bush is no anomaly as members of the Democratic Party would have us believe. Will politics be different under President John F. Kerry? I don't think so.
President, Stop Prisoner Rape
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
to a hooded, naked Iraqi prisoner in a film shown on 60 Minutes 2, England is grinning and flashing a jaunty 'thumbs up' as if she'd just hit a home run in a softball game.
flurry of reporting and commentary about what took place in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, the deliberate decision by some American soldiers to use sexual abuse as a tactic to humiliate detainees warrants further examination.
threatened male prisoners with rape, sodomized a detainee with an object, forced a naked, hooded detainee to masturbate, posed groups of naked prisoners in human pyramids, left male prisoners in cells naked or wearing women's underwear, and forced one detainee to simulate oral sex with another detainee.
choice to use sexually charged forms of abuse was not random or careless. More likely, it was humiliation by design.
of abuse, both at home and abroad, are undeniably aware of the shame these acts induce.
of self-hate are common, and victims often hesitate to report the abuse in order to avoid the stigma that comes with victimization.
their masculinity has been compromised. Often, victims blame themselves and even in impossible circumstances believe that they somehow should have prevented it. Long-term psychological consequences may include post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and suicide.
sexual positions are particularly unacceptable in the Islamic world. And it is certainly important to take cultural differences into account. But sexual abuse is universally appalling, and the similarity to what many U.S. prisoners routinely undergo is striking.
forced or pressured sexual contact in custody, according to studies by researchers such as Cindy Struckman-Johnson at the University of South Dakota. One in 10 has been raped. For women, whose abusers are often corrections officers, the rates of sexual assault are as high as one in four in some facilities.
Abner Louima in a New York stationhouse bathroom; when a Wisconsin corrections officer impregnated mentally ill inmate Jackie Noyes; and when corrections staff knowingly taunted Roderick Johnson who was raped and prostituted by Texas prison gangs.
that the most senior of the individuals accused of abusing Iraqi detainees, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick II, was himself a six-year veteran of the Virginia Department of Corrections.
torture employed to uniquely degrade and humiliate prisoners, people who are virtually helpless to prevent it. And unless we stop it, we give our own thumbs up, in a sense, to a well documented and devastating form of brutality.
Executive Director
Stop Prisoner Rape
Communications Coordinator
Stop Prisoner Rape
CERJ@igc.org wilmerding@earthlink.net
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John Wilmerding, Convener and List Manager
Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ)
217 High Street, Brattleboro, VT, USA
ZIP: 05301-6073 Phone: 1-802-254-2826
CERJ was founded in New York in May, 1997.
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"Work together to reinvent justice using methods
that are fair; that conserve, restore, and even
create harmony, equity and good will in society."
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To join (or leave) the CERJ email list, kindly send
me an email message at wilmerding@earthlink.net
or at cerj@igc.org. I'll need your first & last name,
your email address, and your state, province or
country of residence. Thank you! -- John W.
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for its record on preventing torture and degrading punishment. A
10-strong panel of experts highlighted what it said were Washington's
breaches of the agreement ratified by the United States in 1994. The
UN Committee Against Torture, which monitors international compliance
with the UN Convention Against Torture, has called for the abolition
of electric-shock stun belts (1000 in use in the U.S.) and restraint
chairs on prisoners, as well as an end to holding children in adult
jails.
degrading circumstances" and expressed concern over alleged cases of
sexual assault by police and prison officers. The panel criticized the
excessively harsh regime in maximum security prisons, the use of chain
gangs in which prisoners perform manual labor while shackled together,
and the number of cases of police brutality against racial minorities.
As American as Apple Pie
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR