Uncooperative Guantanamo Bay detainees were regularly
subjected to highly abusive treatment over a long period of time,
unidentified guards at the U.S. military base, intelligence agents and
others who worked in the prison told The New York Times. U.S. military
officials have long maintained such treatment had occurred in isolated
cases and was not common. Prisoners at the Cuban base include those
captured in Afghanistan and Iraq and suspected of association with or
membership in extremist organizations. Human rights groups have
criticized the United States for indefinitely detaining prisoners at
the base, most without charges or legal representation. Earlier this
year, photographs of U.S. personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu
Ghraib prison outside Baghdad generated outrage around the world. The
Times reported in its Sunday editions that prisoners at Guantanamo
deemed uncooperative were stripped to their underwear, shackled hand
and foot to a bolt in the floor and forced to endure strobe lights and
loud music played from close loudspeakers, while the air conditioning
was turned up to maximum levels for periods as long as 14 hours. The
treatment was described to the newspaper by a military official who
said he witnessed the procedure and others who said they participated
in the techniques, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. [more ]
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