prison camp

Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured. During my time as member of the US/UK Task Force, three soldiers recounted to me an incident in which they had witnessed the brutal interrogation of two detainees. Partial drowning and an electric cattle prod were used during this interrogation and this amounted to torture. It was the widely held assumption that this would be the fate of any individuals handed over to our America colleagues.

Typical first time interrogation consisted of some kind of heavy metal music really loud, strobe light, lot of yelled questions and stuff like that, until they finally would break down and cry and say “I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything!” If [the detainee] was a particular target of interest that they thought knew something, you know, they’d grab him, punch him—stomach, neck, arms—you know, right in here [indicating the back of the arm, above the elbow], you’d punch them in the back of the elbows—hold your arms up—you’d punch them in the back of the elbow, I guess, so not to leave a mark. . .. Particularly people of interest, they really want to talk to, they would use everything.

HRW: Was there any discussion of the Red Cross coming?

"Yeah, they said that the Red Cross would never be able to get in there at all."

Jeff explained that the colonel told them that he “had this directly from General Mc Chrystal? and the Pentagon that there’s no way that the Red Cross could get in.”... He explained that they were told: “they just don’t have access, and they won’t have access, and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating. Even Army investigators.”

The experiment in famine began on January 18, 2008. Israel hermetically closed all of Gaza’s borders, preventing even food, medicine and fuel from entering the Strip. Power cuts, which had been frequent for many months, were extended to 12 hours per day. Due to the electricity shortage, at least 40 percent of Gazans have not had access to running water (which is channeled through electric pumps) for several days and the sewage system has broken down. The raw sewage that has not spilled onto the streets is now being poured into the sea at a daily rate of 30 million liters. Hospitals have been forced to rely on emergency generators leading them to cut back, yet again, on the already limited services offered to the Palestinian population. The World Food Programme has reported critical shortages of food and declared that it is unable to provide 10,000 of the poorest Gazans with three out of the five foodstuffs they normally receive.