Torture Cells

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan,prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members or supporters were transported to Guantánamo. Human rights groups and lawyers representing detainees have painted a stark picture of conditions there. A June 21,2005,article in the The New York Times quoted an FBI agent as saying,8221;On a couple of occasions,I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor,with no chair,food or water. Most times,they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18,24 hours or more.8221; Many of the released prisoners have complained that they were subjected to beatings,were made to stand in uncomfortable positions,were hooded for long and that they had to endure sexual and cultural humiliation,forced injections,and other physical and psychological mistreatment.

Bagram Afghanistan

Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001,the Bagram air base,40 miles north of Kabul,has been the site of a large,makeshift military detention centre operated by US8217;s Central Intelligence Agency. By 2002,prisoners were brought here from as far away as central Africa and Southeast Asia and even from neighbouring Pakistan. Many were brought here after being held at secret CIA prisons around the world.

The detention centre at Bagram was built into the cavernous shell of an aircraft-repair shop that was built in the 1960s and later used by the Soviet forces that occupied Afghanistan during the 1980s. In 2002 and 2003,most prisoners were held in crude pens built from coils of razor wire piled in stacks reaching above their heads. They were often shackled to the metal gates at the front of those pens as punishment for offences like talking or spitting at guards.

In December 2002,two Afghan detainees were killed within a week of each other. Although the US military command at Bagram initially reported that they died of 8220;natural causes,8221; a subsequent Army investigation indicated that the two deaths followed several days in which the men were punished by being shackled to the ceilings of isolation cells to keep them from sleeping,and repeated beatings by guards. After a prolonged probe,investigators recommended criminal charges against 27 military police and intelligence personnel. Of those,14 soldiers and one officer were prosecuted. The longest sentence any of them received was five months in a military prison. The detention center was later renamed the Bagram Theatre Internment Facility.

Abu Ghraib,Iraq

Before the fall of Saddam Hussein,Abu Ghraib,a sprawling penal compound west of Baghdad,was notorious within Iraq as a place where torture and executions were commonplace. It became notorious throughout the world in 2004 after photographs were made public of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners there.

The images of Iraqi detainees being beaten and sexually humiliated at the prison became a touchstone for Arab and Muslim rage against the United States in the spring of 2004,and a potent recruiting tool for insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003,there were calls for Abu Ghraib to be demolished. But members of Iraq8217;s governing council,one of whom had been imprisoned there for 13 years,resisted,saying it was needed as a prison. After the prisoner abuse by the Americans became public,President Bush proposed to raze the Abu Ghraib complex,but an American military judge ordered that it be preserved as a crime scene.

Nine American soldiers were ultimately found guilty in the Abu Ghraib abuse case,which also prompted a number of military and Congressional investigations. In March 2006,the American military announced plans to remove its remaining prisoners from the site. Iraq will reopen Abu Ghraib prison in February as Baghdad Central Prison. Iraqi officials said it had been renovated to international standards.