Waterboarding is one of several methods of torture done by pouring water into the nose or the mouth of a person who is immobile, causing the individual to experience the thrill of drowning. Typically, water is poured intermittently to prevent death, however, if the water is poured continuously it will cause death by drowning or asphyxia with a drowning sensation, also called dry drowning. There are many waterboarding methods, some far more brutal than others. More brutal methods have been identified as water torture, and can cause death by drowning, extreme pain, lung damage, brain damage due to lack of oxygen, other physical injuries including fractures due to fighting against restraint, and psychological damage persist. The adverse physical consequences can manifest itself several months after the event, while the psychological effects can last for years.
In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive face is covered with a cloth or some other thin material, and the subject is paralyzed on the back with a 10 to 20 degree slope. Water is poured into the face over the respiratory tract, causing almost immediate vomiting reflex and creating a drowning sensation for captives.
The term water torture appeared in a press report in early 1976. By the end of 2007, it was widely reported that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (CIA) was an astrologed water container and that the Office of Legal Advisors, the Department of Justice , has endorsed the procedure among enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA confirmed it had waterboarded three al-Qaeda suspects: Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in 2002 and 2003.
In August 2002 and March 2003, in the war on terror, the George W. Bush administration, through Jay S. Bybee, issued what was known as a torture memo after leaking in 2004. This legal opinion (including memo Bybee 2002) argues for the definition narrow torture under US law. The first three are addressed to the CIA, which makes them the authority to use enhanced interrogation techniques on prisoners classified as enemy fighters. Five days before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, John Yoo, the Office of Counsel, issued a fourth memo to DOD's General Counsel, concluding his legal opinion by saying that federal laws related to torture and other harassment were not applicable to interrogations abroad. The legal opinion was drawn by Jack Goldsmith of OLC in June 2004 but reaffirmed by the successful head of OLC in December 2004. US government officials at various times said they did not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture.
In 2006, the Bush administration banned waterboarding of detainees. In January 2009, US President Barack Obama issued a similar ban on the use of waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation of detainees. In April 2009, the US Department of Defense refused to say whether waterboarding was still being used for training (eg, SERE) US military personnel in the fight against interrogation.
In December 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a 500 page summary classified from a classified page report of 6,700 pages on the Central Intelligence Detention and Interrogation Center (CIA). The report concludes that "the use of CIA-enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) is ineffective in obtaining intelligence or obtaining cooperation from detainees." According to the report, the CIA did not show credible evidence that information obtained through waterboarding or other abusive interrogation methods used by the CIA prevented attacks or saved lives. There is no evidence that information obtained from detainees via EIT is not or can not be obtained through conventional interrogation methods.
In June 2015, in response to China's critical assessment of the State Department's annual human rights report, China claimed that the US, among other alleged human rights abuses, engaged in the torture of terrorism suspects, specifically mentioned the use of waterboarding.
Video Waterboarding
Etymology
While waterboarding techniques have been used in various forms over the centuries, the term water board was first recorded in the UPI 1976 report: "A Navy spokesman acknowledges the use of 'water board' torture... to 'convince every trainee that he will not be able to physically deny what the enemy will do to him. ' "The nouns waterboarding comes from 2004. The first appearance of this term in the mass media is in the New York Times article on May 13, 2004:
In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-ranking detainee believed to have helped plan the September 11, 2001, Cis.A. the interrogator uses the level of force skipped, including a technique known as 'water boarding', where the prisoner is tied up, forced into the water and made to believe he or she may be drowning.
US lawyer Alan Dershowitz reportedly shortened the term into a single word in the Boston Globe article two days later: "After all, the government does approve crude interrogation methods for some highly valued prisoners, including waterboarding, where a prisoner was pushed underwater and made to believe he would drown unless he gave information, as well as sensory plundering, painful stressful positions and simulated dog attacks.Dershowitz then informed the columnist William Keepire the New York Times that , "when I first used the word, no one knew what that meant."
Techniques that use forcible sinking for extracting information have until now been referred to as "water torture", "water treatment", "water healing" or simply "torture".
Professor Darius Rejali of Reed College, author of Torture and Democracy (2007), speculated that the term waterboarding may derive from the need for euphemism.
"There is a special vocabulary for torture.When people use aging torture, they change their name and change them a bit.They find slightly new words to conceal the similarities.This creates an inside club, especially important in the work where secrecy is important. "Waterboarding is clearly a prison joke. This refers to "surfboards" - words found as early as 1929- "they attach someone to the board and help them surf." The torturers make funny names for them. "
Webster's Dictionary first entered the term in 2009: "[A] interrogation technique in which water is forced into the mouth and nose of a prisoner so as to induce a drowning sensation."
Maps Waterboarding
Technique
Waterboarding was marked in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a "professional interrogation technique". According to press, a cloth or plastic wrap is placed above or inside someone's mouth, and water is poured into the person's head. Press accounts differ on the details of this technique - one article explains "dripping water onto a wet cloth over a suspect's face", while another states that "the cellophane is wrapped on the face of the prisoner and water is poured over it".
The US Legal Advisory Office in August 2002 responded to the CIA's request for legal opinions on the use of certain interrogation techniques. This includes the following accounts of the CIA definition of waterboarding in the Top Secret 2002 memorandum as follows:
In this procedure, the individual is securely bonded to a leaning bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. Individual feet generally increase. The fabric is placed over the forehead and the eyes. Water is then applied to the fabric in a controlled manner. When this is done, the cloth is lowered to cover the nose and mouth. After the cloth is saturated and completely covering the mouth and nose, the airflow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of fabric... For 20 to 40 seconds, water continues to be applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe without breath for three or four full breaths... This procedure can then be repeated. Water is usually applied from canteen cups or a small watering with a spout... You have... told us that it is unlikely that this procedure will last more than twenty minutes in one application.
Historically in the West, waterboarding techniques are known to have been used in the Spanish Inquisition. Prisoners suffocating with water have been favored because, unlike most other torture techniques, it does not produce marks on the body. The CIA officer who has performed this technique has survived an average of 14 seconds before giving up. According to at least one former CIA official, the information derived from waterboarding may not be reliable because someone under such pressure can admit anything, because harsh interrogation techniques lead to false confessions. "The man believes they were killed, and as such, it's really as much as a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. It was a "bad interrogation." I mean you can get anyone to confess to anyone if the torture is bad enough, "said former CIA officer Bob Baer. There was a dispute within the Bush administration about the use of these techniques; both military investigators and the FBI are against them.
Demonstrations reported
In 2006 and 2007, Fox News and Current TV, respectively, showed waterboarding techniques. In the video, each correspondent was arrested against a council by an "interrogator".
Christopher Hitchens volunteered to subdue himself in a waterboarding film demonstration in 2008, an experience he shared at Vanity Fair. He is tied to a horizontal board with a black mask on his face. A group of men are said to be highly trained in this tactic, which demands anonymity, doing waterboarding. Hitchens is tied to a board on the chest and legs, face up, and unable to move. Metal objects are placed in each hand, which can fall if they feel "unbearable stress". The interrogator placed a towel on Hitchen's face, and poured water on it. After 16 seconds, Hitchens threw metal objects to the floor and the interrogators pulled the mask off his face, allowing him to breathe. In his article on the topic, he stated, "Then, if waterboarding is not torture, then there is no such thing as torture." In 2016, conservative commentator Steven Crowder demonstrates waterboarding on his YouTube channel.
Mental and physical effects
Allen Keller, director of the New York University Bellevue Hospital/Program for Torture Survivors, has treated "a number of people" who have experienced near-breathless forms, including waterboarding. In an interview for The New Yorker , he argued that "it was indeed torture." Some of the victims are still traumatized years later, "one patient could not bathe, and panicked in the rain.'The fear of being killed was a terrible experience ', he said.Keller also gave a full description in 2007 in testimony before the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee on practice:
The CIA's Office of Health Services noted in a 2003 memo that "for reasons of physical exhaustion or psychological withdrawal, subjects may simply give up, allow overcharging of the airways and loss of consciousness."
In an open letter in 2007 to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch affirmed that waterboarding could cause some sort of "serious illness" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention against Torture), that its psychological effects can last long after the end of waterboarding (one of the other criteria under 18 USC 2340), and undisturbed waterboarding can eventually lead to death.
Controversy over whether waterboarding is torture
The question of whether waterboarding is torture in all cases, or in certain cases of waterboarding the CIA from Al-Qaeda prisoners, was never resolved by the courts. Waterboarding is considered torture by many authorities, including lawyers, politicians, war veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, and human rights organizations. David Miliband, then British Foreign Secretary, described it as torture on July 19, 2008, and declared "Unconditional UK condemning the use of torture". The argument has been argued that it may not be torturous in all cases, or is unclear. The US State Department has acknowledged "submersion in water" as torture under other circumstances, for example, in the 2005 State Report on Tunisia.
United Nations' Report on the Committee against Torture: The Thirty-Five Session of November 2006, states that member states should abrogate any interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which is torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment. However, in Ireland v. England, The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British interrogation techniques used against certain IRA detainees, including waterboarding, did not rise to the level of torture (ill-treatment not torture). In Selmouni v. France, The European Court of Human Rights cites Ireland with approval in this context.
Classification in US.
Whether waterboarding should be classified as a method of torture was not widely debated in the United States before the allegation, in 2004, that CIA members had used techniques against suspected terrorists.
Furthermore, the US government released a memorandum written in 2002 by the Office of Counsel that came to the conclusion that waterboarding was not a torture and could be used to interrogate subjects. The OLC reasoned that "in order for pain or suffering to rise to the level of torture, the law requires that it be severe" and that waterboarding does not cause severe pain or suffering both physically and mentally.
For more than three years during the George W. Bush administration, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility undertook an investigation into the courtesy and memos by the Justice Department on waterboarding and other "improved" interrogation techniques. The findings of the OPR report are that AAG's former Deputy John Yoo committed a deliberate professional offense and that former AAG Jay Bybee committed a professional blunder. The findings were dismissed in a memo from Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis who found that Yoo showed "poor judgment" but did not violate ethical standards. Commentators have noted that the memos eliminated relevant relevant precedents, including the Texas precedent under Governor George W. Bush when the country was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison as county sheriff to drain criminals. Bush did not issue clemency for the sheriff.
Former George W. Bush administration officials Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft have stated since leaving the office that they do not consider waterboarding as torture. At least one Republican member of the US Congress, Ted Poe, has taken the same position.
Other Republican officials have provided a less definitive view on whether waterboarding is torture. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Republican prosecutor included in George W. Bush's administration, has stated that when used in "some examples that are not extended or extended", waterboarding should not qualify as a legal torture. McCarthy has also stated that "waterboarding is close enough to torture that a reasonable mind may differ on whether it is torture" and that "[t] here should not be much of a debate that subjugates a person to waterboarding repeatedly will cause the kind of mental suffering that necessary for torture ".
Many former senior government officials George W. Bush, on the other hand, have seriously questioned or challenged the legality of waterboarding. These include former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former Chief of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former head of Jack Goldsmith Legal Advisory Office, General Ricardo Sanchez, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and former Parliamentary Regulator for the Military Commission Guantanamo Susan J. Crawford.
During his tenure as head of the Justice Department Legal Counsel in 2003-2004, Jack Goldsmith suspended the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique due to his serious concern over legality, but Goldsmith's order was quickly reversed by others in the George W. Bush Administration.
A Republican candidate for president, Senator John McCain who himself was tortured during 5 Ã, 1 / 2 as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, has stated unequivocally several times that he considers waterboarding as torture:
waterboarding,... is a mock execution and thus a beautiful form of torture. Thus, they are prohibited by American law and value, and I am against it.
Professors like Wilson R. Huhn also challenged the legality of waterboarding.
In May 2008, writer and journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding and concluded that it was torture. He also noted that he suffered the continuing psychological effects of the ordeal.
On May 22, 2009, radio talk show host Erich "Mancow" Muller bowed himself to waterboarding to prove that it was not torture, but changed his mind because of the experience.
Sean Hannity, another commentator who claims that waterboarding is not torture and has described people opposed to waterboarding as a "moral fool", has stated on April 22, 2009 that he will also be subject to waterboarding to prove that it is not torture. Hannity has not been subject to this technique although Keith Olbermann and Jesse Ventura have made a public bet about Hannity's inability to withhold treatment.
In an interview on May 11, 2009 with Larry King, Ventura stated:
[Waterboarding is] sinking. It gives you a complete sensation that you are drowning. This is not good, because you - I will put it on you in this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and an hour, and I will ask him to acknowledge Sharon Tate's murder.... If it's wrong, you can drown. You can swallow your tongue. [It] can do a lot for you. If it's wrong or - it's torture, Larry. S torture.
On January 15, 2009, US President-elect Barack Obama's candidate for Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate confirmation hearing that waterboarding was torture and the President could not legitimize it. In a press conference on April 30, President Obama also stated, "I believe waterboarding is torture, and that is a mistake."
Description by U.S. media
In covering the debate over the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique by the US government, US journalists must decide whether to use the term "torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" to describe waterboarding. The National Public Radio Ombudsman details this debate and why NPR decided not to use the word torture to describe waterboarding. Due to media criticism by the media and NPR directly, the second part was written to further explain their position and desire to describe the technique rather than simply describing it as torture.
Checked the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country (The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and > USA Today a group of students from Joan Shorenstein Center in Press, Politics, and Public Policy found a sudden and significant change in how newspapers characterize waterboarding from the early 1930s until the modern story broke out in 2004.
Historical usage
Spanish Inquisition
A form of torture similar to waterboarding is called toca , and more recently "Spanish water torture", to distinguish it from the more well-known Chinese water torture, along with
In general, waterboarding appeared to be greatly extended in Spanish detention centers in the 1500s. The books of the time explain how to treat people in custody, and use this "light" torture form. After a certain way of hitting, body, legs and arms, it is detailed how to pour 4 cuartillos (about 2.5 liters) of water over the mouth and nose, with a cloth cover, ensuring there are some cloths introduced in the mouth so water can also enter.
Flemish Inquisition
In Joos de Damhouder's Praxis rerum criminalium (1554), a guide to criminal law practice, the chapter on torture and interrogation is illustrated by a wooden piece of waterboarding, described in detail. The Martyr's Mirror describes one of the waterboarding incidents used against the early Mennonites as follows:
And since they still have not got anything from me, on the implications of my neighbor, Mr. Hans takes water (all the time a cloth covers my face), and holds my nose with one hand, starts pouring water over my stomach and from there all my breasts, and to my mouth; even as people have to drink when he is very thirsty. I think it could be from where it was poured - water held about three pints. And when I was at the end of the breath, and wanted to pick him up, I pulled water into my body, where I suffered such distress, that it was impossible for me to tell or describe it; but God is forever praised: He guards my lips. And when they still can not get anything from me, they cause the strap on my thighs to be released and applied to a fresh place, and wrap it more tightly than before, so I think he will kill me, and start shaking and shaking violently. He then started pouring water over me again, so I thought he emptied the four cans, and my body became so full, that it twice went out again in my throat. And thus I became very weak. that I fainted; because, when I recovered from my fainting, I found myself with Mr. Hans and Daniel de Keyser. And Mr. Hans is actively involved in losing all my ropes, so it seems to me that they are worried about me. But God in great degree takes away my pain all the time; every time it becomes so bad that I think it is impossible to bear it, my members become dead. Everlasting praise, thanksgiving, honor, and glory to God; because when it was over I thought that, with God's help, I had fought well.
Colonial time
The agent of the Dutch East India Company used a predecessor for waterboarding during the British prisoner Amboyna massacre, which took place on the island of Amboyna in the Maluku Islands in 1623. At that time, it consisted of wrapping cloth on the victim's head, after which the torturers "poured water gently on top of his head until the cloth was full, up to his mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so he could not breathe but he had to suck all the water ". In one case, the torturer used water three or four times in a row until "the victim's body swelled two or three times larger than before, his cheeks were like a large bladder, and his eyes were staring and pacing beyond his forehead."
American Prisons before World War I
An editorial at The New York Times April 6, 1852, and the April 21, 1852 subsequent letter to the editor documenting the waterboarding incident, later called "bathing" or "hydropatic torture", in New York's Sing Singing a prisoner of an inmate named Henry Hagan, who, after some form of beating and other persecution, had his head shaved, and "of course three, and maybe a dozen, water barrels poured onto his bare scalp". Hagan then placed in a yoke. The correspondent listed only as "H" then writes: "It may be better to state more fully the true character of this 'hydropatic torture.' The water stream is about one inch in diameter, and falls from the height of the
Prisoners in the late 19th century Alabama, and in Mississippi in the first third of the 20th century, also suffered waterboarding. In Alabama, as a substitute or in addition to other physical punishment, a "prisoner is strapped on his back, then" water is poured on his face on the upper lip, and effectively stops his breathing during a constant flow. "In Mississippi, the defendant was arrested, and water poured" from dye to nose so as to strangle him, causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing confession. "
During the Philippine-American War
US forces used waterboarding, called "water healing", during the Philippine-American War. It is not clear where this practice originated; it may have been adopted from Filipinos, who themselves adopted it from Spain. Reports of "cruelty" from soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to a Senate hearing on US activity there.
The testimony describes waterboarding Tobeniano Ealdama "while being watched by... Captain/Major Edwin F. Glenn (Glenn Highway)".
Elihu Root, US Secretary of War, ordered a military trial for Glenn in April 1902. "During the trial, Glenn" stated that the torture of Ealdama was "a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war."
Although some reports seem to confuse Ealdama with Glenn, Glenn was found guilty and "sentenced to a month of suspension and a fine of fifty dollars", leniency for the "circumstances" presented at the trial.
President Theodore Roosevelt personally rationalized the example of "mild torture, water healing" but openly called for efforts to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future". In that effort, he ordered the military court of General Jacob H. Smith on the island of Samar, "where some of the worst offenses occurred". When the military court found only that he had acted with excessive zeal, Roosevelt ignored the verdict and ordered the General to withdraw from the Army.
Roosevelt immediately declared victory in the Philippines, and the public lost interest in "what, a few months earlier, has made alarming warnings".
By US police before the 1940s
The use of a third-level "interrogation" technique to enforce recognition, ranging from "psychological pressure such as prolonged defeats to extreme violence and torture," extended in early American policing. Lassiter classifies water healing as "regulated physical abuse", and describes police techniques as "a modern variation of the popular methods of water torture during the Middle Ages". The technique used by the police involves holding the head in water until it is almost drown, or lying on the back and forcing water into the mouth or nostrils. Such techniques are classified as "secret three-level torture" because they leave no sign of physical violence, and became popular after 1910 when the direct application of physical violence to force recognition became a media problem and some courts began to deny being clearly forced. The publication of this information in 1931 as part of the "Report on Law Violations in Wickersham Law Enforcement" led to a decline in the use of third-level police interrogation techniques in the 1930s and 1940s.
World War II
During World War II, both Japanese military personnel, notably Kempeitai, and Gestapo officers, the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture. During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, the Tenth Double Incident occurred. This includes waterboarding, with a method of tying or holding the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto a cloth. In this version, interrogations continued during torture, with the interrogator hitting the victim if he did not answer and the victim swallowed water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim can not swallow water again, the interrogator will hit or jump to his bulging stomach.
Chase J. Nielsen, one of the US airmen flying in the Doolittle attack after the attack on Pearl Harbor, was the target of a water container by his Japanese captors. In their trial for war crimes after the war, he testified "Well, I was beaten on the floor with my arms and legs outstretched, one guard holding each branch, the towel wrapped around my face and put on my face and water poured.They poured water onto the towel this until I almost unconscious of strangulation, then they will give up until I get my breath, then they will start again... I feel more like I'm drowning, just panting between life and death. "In 2007, the Senator John McCain claimed that the United States military hung Japanese troops for a warring water container in America during World War II. The minimum penalty for Japanese soldiers convicted of waterboarding the American army is 15 years.
By France in Algerian War
This technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who became the target of waterboarding by the French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957, is one of only a few who have described in writing first hand experience as waterboarded. His book, La Question, was published in 1958 with an introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre which was then banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962, discussing the experience tied to the board, having his head wrapped in a cloth and positioned under the tap flowing:
The cloth was soaked quickly. Water flows everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I can still breathe in a few small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take as little water as possible and to hold my breath by keeping the air in my lungs as long as I could. But I can not last more than a few moments. I have the impression of drowning, and the terrible suffering, death itself, overwhelms me. Apart from me, all the muscles of my body struggled in vain to save me from suffocating. Apart from me, the fingers of my two hands trembled uncontrollably. "That's it! He'll talk," said a voice.
The water stopped flowing and they took the rag. I can breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and captains, who, with a cigarette between his lips, beat my stomach with his fists to make me throw away the water I swallowed.
Alleg stated that he did not experience failure under his ordeal as waterboarding. He also stated that the incident of "accident" deaths of prisoners who were subjected to waterboarding in Algeria "very often".
Vietnam War
Waterboarding was designated as illegal by US generals in the Vietnam War. On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front page photo of two US soldiers and one South Vietnamese army participating in a waterboarding POW North Vietnam near Da Nang. The article describes the practice as "fairly common". The photograph caused the soldier to be tried by a US military tribunal within a month of its publication, and he was dismissed from the army. Another waterboarding photo of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in his statement, is also on display at the War Time Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
Chile
Based on testimony from more than 35,000 victims of the Pinochet regime, the Political Correctional and Torture Commission concluded that provoking a near-death experience by waterboarding was torture.
Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge in Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979. This practice was perfected by lieutenants Duch, Mam Nai and Tang Sin Hean and documented in paintings by former inmate Vann Nath, on display at the Genocide Museum Tuol Sleng. The museum also has display boards and other actual tools used for waterboarding during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Northern Ireland
The evidence shows that the British Army in the Problem subjected detainees in Northern Ireland to torture and mountain water during interrogations in the 1970s. Liam Holden was wrongly arrested by British troops for the murder of a British soldier and became the last person in Britain who was sentenced to death after being convicted in 1973, largely on the basis of unmarked confessions resulting from torture. His death sentence was alleviated to life in prison and he spent 17 years behind bars. On 21 June 2012, in light of a CCRC investigation confirming that the method used to extract confessions was unlawful, Holden had his conviction undone by the High Court in Belfast, at the age of 58. The former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) interrogator during Troubles admitted that the beating , lack of sleep, waterboarding, and other systematic torture, and sometimes, are sanctioned at a very high level in strength.
Apartheid in the South African Union
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission received testimony from Charles Zeelie and Jeffrey Benzien, officers from South African Police under Apartheid, that they used waterboarding, referred to as "tubing", or "wet pockets" in political prisoners as part of various methods torture to extract information. In particular, the cloth bags are wet and placed over the victim's head, to be removed only when they are near shortness of breath; this procedure is repeated several times. The TRC concluded that the action was a severe torture and human rights violation, in which the state was responsible.
AS. military survival training
Until 2007, all special operations units in all branches of the US military and the CIA's Special Activities Division used the use of waterboarding as part of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training, to prepare the army psychologically for the possibility of being captured by enemy troops. In 2002, many branches of military had retreated from waterboarding trainees, and in November 2007 the practice was banned by the Department of Defense because "it does not provide instructional or training benefits to students". John Yoo, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General under President Bush stated that the United States has subjected 20,000 troops to waterboarding as part of the SERE training before deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg, former head of Psychological Services for the SERE Air Force School has testified before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services that there is a fundamental difference between the SERE training and what happens in real-world settings. Dr. Ogrisseg further stated that his experience was limited to the SERE training, but that he did not believe that waterboarding became productive in every setting.
Jane Mayer menulis untuk The New Yorker:
According to SERE affiliates and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11, some experienced psychologists in the SERE technique began advising interrogators at Guantano Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists are basically "trying to reverse engineer" the SERE program, as affiliates say. "They take good knowledge and use it in a bad way," said another source. Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantanà ± o adopted coercive techniques similar to those used in the SERE program.
and keep reporting:
many of the interrogation methods used in the SERE training seem to have been applied in GuantÃÆ'¡namo.
However, according to an unclassified memo of the Department of Justice seeking to justify torture referring to the still-secret report of the CIA's Inspector General on the use of waterboarding by the CIA, among other "improved" interrogation techniques, the CIA implements waterboarding to detainees "in a way" rather than the techniques used in the SERE training:
The difference is in the way the prisoners' breathing is blocked. In the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, subject airflow is disrupted by the firm application of damp cloth over the airways; the interrogator applies a little water to the fabric in a controlled manner. Instead, the Agency interrogator... applied large amounts of water to the cloth covering the prisoner's mouth and nose. One psychiatrist/interrogator admits that the use of this technique by the Agency is different from that used in the SERE training because it is 'real' and more touching and convincing.
According to the DOJ memo, the IG Report observed that the CIA Medical Service Office (OMS) stated that "the experience of the psychologist/interrogator SERE on the waterboard may be misinterpreted at the time, because the SERE's waterboard experience is very different from the use of the next Agency to make it almost irrelevant" and that "[c] Furthermore, according to CSOs, there is no a priori reason to believe that applying waterboard with the frequency and intensity used by psychologists/interrogators is either efficacious or medically safe."
Contemporary usage and the United States
Usage by law enforcement
In 1983, San Jacinto County, Texas sheriff, James Parker, and three of his deputies were convicted of conspiring to impose recognition. The complaint says that they "punish detainees with a torture of torture to force confession.This usually involves placing a towel over the nose and mouth of the inmate and pouring water into a towel until the prisoner starts to move, jerk, twitching), or otherwise indicates suffocation and/or drowning ". James Parker was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies for up to four years.
Used by intelligence officers
The June 21, 2004 issue of Newsweek states that ByBee Memo, a memorandum of early August 2002 law drafted by John Yoo and signed by his superior, Jay S. Bybee, who later became head of the Office of the Legal Counsel, described the interrogation tactics against a terrorist suspect or a terrorist affiliation that the George W. Bush administration would consider legal, was "fueled by the CIA's question of what to do with al Qaeda prisoners, Abu Zubaydah, who had changed uncooperatively... and was designed after the White House meetings hosted by George W. Bush's main adviser Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general advisers William Haynes and David Addington, adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, who discussed special interrogation techniques ", citing" a source familiar with the discussion ". Among the methods they found acceptable was waterboarding. Jack Goldsmith, head of the Office of Counsel (October 2003-June 2004) at the Justice Department, later said the group was known as the "war council".
In November 2005, ABC News reported that the former CIA agent claimed that the CIA was involved in the modern form of waterboarding, along with five other "enhanced interrogation techniques", against al-Qaeda suspects.
On July 20, 2007, US President George W. Bush signed an executive order prohibiting torture during interrogation of terror suspects. Although the guidelines for interrogation do not specifically prohibit the use of waterboarding, the executive order refers to torture as defined by 18 USC 2340, which includes "imminent threat of death", as well as the US Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The reaction to the order was mixed, with the CIA satisfied that "clearly defined" agency authority.
Human Rights Watch says that the answer to what specific technique has been banned is in a secret companion document and that "the people responsible for interpreting the document do not have a good track record of legal analysis".
On September 14, 2007, ABC News reported that in 2006, CIA Director Michael Hayden requested and received permission from the Bush administration to ban the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations. A CIA spokesman declined to discuss the interrogation technique, which he said "has and continues to be halal". ABC reported that waterboarding was endorsed by the President's discovery in 2002. On 5 November 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that "its source confirmed... that the CIA only used this interrogation method against three terrorist prisoners and not since 2003. " John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, was the first official in the US administration to publicly acknowledge the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique, as of December 10, 2007.
On February 6, 2008, CIA director General Michael Hayden stated that the CIA had installed three waterboarded prisoners during 2002 and 2003, namely Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
On February 23, 2008, the Justice Department disclosed that its internal ethics office is investigating the department's legal consent for a water container from al-Qaeda suspects by the CIA and the possibility of making the public an unclassified version of its report.
On October 15, 2008, it was reported that the Bush administration had issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in June 2003 and June 2004 explicitly supporting water-tapping techniques and other torture techniques against al-Qaeda suspects. The memo was given only after "repeated requests" from the CIA, who at the time were worried that the White House would finally try to distance itself from the issue. Field employees in agencies believe they can be easily blamed for using techniques without written permission or proper authority. Up to this point, the Bush administration has never been concretely bound to recognize such practices.
In December 2008, Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI since July 5, 2001, has said that although the Bush Administration claims that waterboarding has "disrupted a number of attacks, perhaps dozens of attacks", he does not believe that evidence obtained by the US government through improved interrogation techniques as waterboarding interferes with one attack.
In an interview in January 2009, Dick Cheney acknowledged the use of waterboarding to interrogate suspects and said that waterboarding has been "used with great discrimination by people who know what they are doing and have generated a lot of valuable information and intelligence".
On July 1, 2009, the Obama administration announced that it was delaying the scheduled release of the reporting section that was not classified by the CIA Inspector General in response to a civil lawsuit. The CIA report reportedly doubted the effectiveness of the techniques used by CIA interrogators during the Bush administration. It is based on several memos of the George W. Bush Department of Justice announced in Spring 2009 by the US Department of Justice.
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah is waterboarded by the CIA.
In 2002, US intelligence found Abu Zubaydah by tracking his phone calls. He was arrested March 28, 2002, in a hiding house located in a two-story apartment in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
One FBI interrogator Abu Zubaydah, Ali Soufan, wrote a book about his experience. He then testified to Congress that Zubaydah produced useful information in response to conventional methods of interrogation, including the names of Sheikh Mohammed and Jose Padilla. He stopped providing accurate information in response to crude techniques. Soufan, one of the most successful FBI interrogators, explained, "When they are in pain, people will say anything to stop the pain.Most of the time, they will lie, make anything to make you stop hurting them. You get useless. "
Participating in later interrogations by the CIA were two American psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and R. Scott Shumate.
In December 2007, The Washington Post reported that there were some discrepancies regarding reports about the number of times Zubaydah was waterboarded. According to previous reports by former CIA officer John Kiriakou, Abu Zubaydah broke out after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, involving stretching the cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water onto his face to create a drowning sensation. Kiriakou later admitted that he lacked first-hand knowledge of interrogations and accused the CIA of using him to spread disinformation.
Former CIA operator John Kiriakou in 2007 told CNN's "American Morning" that Abu Qubeda's al-Qaeda waterboarding indirectly led to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest: Former agents, who said he participated in Abu Zubayda's interrogation but not with his waterboarding, said the CIA decided to use Al Qaeda aircraft only after "completely uncooperative" for weeks and refused to answer questions. All that has changed - and Zubayda is reported to have a divine revelation - after 30 to 35 seconds of waterboarding, Kiriakou says that he learned from a CIA agent who did this technique. Terrorist terrorists, held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reportedly submitted information that indirectly led to the 2003 Sic attacks in Pakistan that resulted in the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , an alleged planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Kiriakou said.
- The CIA was unaware of Muhammad's position before Abu Zubayda's interrogation, the previous agent said.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times while being interrogated by the CIA.
Pakistani intelligence agents say that Muhammad carried a letter from bin Laden during his capture, but there is no evidence he knows of bin Laden's existence. At this point, any information Mohammed had would have been years out of date.
After repeated waterboarding, Mohammed claimed participation in thirty-one terrorist plots. On June 15, 2009, in response to the lawsuit by the ACLU, the government was forced to disclose the previously classified section of a CIA memo written in 2006. It tells Mohammed who told the CIA that he "made up stories" to stop torture.. The jurists cast serious doubts about the validity of Muhammad's "confession" as a false claim, and human rights activists raised serious concerns over the "false process" of justice and the use of torture.
During a radio interview on October 24, 2006, with Scott Hennen of WDAY radio station, Vice President Dick Cheney agreed with the use of waterboarding. The government later denied that Cheney had confirmed the use of waterboarding, saying that US officials did not talk openly about interrogation techniques because they were classified. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow stated that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding, although repeated questions refused to determine what else Cheney meant by "dunk in the water", and refused to confirm that this meant waterboarding.
On September 13, 2007, ABC News reported that a former intelligence officer stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been flanked by water in the presence of a female CIA supervisor.
On June 2, 2010, while speaking with the Grand Rapids, Michigan, Economy Club, former President Bush publicly confirmed his knowledge and approval of Mohammed's waterboarding, saying, "Yes, we are crawling Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... I will do it again for save lives. "
Obama Administration
President Barack Obama banned the use of waterboarding and several other interrogation methods in January 2009. He reported that US personnel must stick to Military Field guidelines. In early April 2009, the Obama administration released several secret Ministry of Justice memos from the George W. Bush administration that discussed waterboarding.
Obama opposes the idea of ​​prosecution of CIA personnel who perform waterboarding based on legal advice provided by superiors. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized its position. In early April 2009, news reports stated that Obama would support an independent inquiry into the matter as long as it would be bipartisan. On April 23, 2009, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that the government has changed its position and is now opposed to such an idea. This topic has been a hot internal debate within the White House.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has stated that "high value information" comes from waterboarding certain prisoners during the George W. Bush administration. He also commented that he could not know for certain whether other methods of interrogation would cause them to speak, whether they had been tried. In an openly released administrative memo, he writes, "I do not blame those who made the decision at the time, and I would really defend those who interrogate in the orders given to them."
April voting by Rasmussen Reports found that 77 percent of voters have followed stories in the media and that 58 percent believe that releasing the memo is endangering American national security. Regarding the issue of further investigation, 58 percent disagreed while 28% agreed.
Obama explained his views on waterboarding and torture in a press conference on April 29, 2009.
In May 2011, Obama ordered a successful commando attack to kill Osama Bin Laden. The extent to which waterboarding helps ensure Bin Laden's existence is a matter of dispute. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey criticized the Obama administration for denying the future mission of intelligence capabilities that made the attack possible: "Recognize and meet the need for an effective and legitimate interrogation program we once had, and free CIA agents and others to manage it. under congressional oversight, would be a fitting way to mark the death of Osama bin Laden. "CIA Director Leon Panetta, who oversaw operations that found and killed bin Laden, was stated in an interview with NBC reporter Brian Williams:"... they use interrogation techniques that refined to some of these prisoners, but I also say that the debate about whether we will get the same information through another approach, I think, will always be an open question. "
Republican Senator John McCain, in the opinion section of the Washington Post , denied Mukasey's statement, saying:
I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to Bin Laden does not begin with the disclosure of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who performed waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti - the alleged messenger of al-Qaeda that eventually took us to bin Laden - as well as his description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, comes from detainees held in other countries, whom we believe are not tortured. None of the three prisoners who ride waterboarded gave Abu Ahmed his real name, whereabouts, or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.
In fact, the use of improved interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produces false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogator that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, married and stopped his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator - nothing is true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from CIA detainees - information that illustrates Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's real role in al-Qaeda and its true relationship with bin Laden - is acquired through standard, noncoercive means.
US Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on August 30, 2012 that no one will be prosecuted for the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003, eliminating the last possibility that any criminal prosecution will be brought as a result of interrogations conducted by the CIA. The Justice Department closes its investigation into the use of strict interrogation methods by the CIA, as investigators say they can not prove any agents violate the limits allowed by the Bush administration in the "war on terror" detention and detention program. According to the New York Times closing the case means the Obama administration's limited efforts to research counterterrorism programs, such as waterboarding, conducted under President George W. Bush have come to an end.
Used by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
In October 2014, John Cantlie reported that ISIS had waterboarded prisoners, "Some of us who tried to escape were seawater catchers by our captors, because Muslim prisoners were accommodated by their Americans."
Before and during the 2016 presidential election
By 2015, Republican presidential candidates indicate their willingness to bring back waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Donald Trump (the winner of the final election) states that he believes in the effectiveness of the technique. Trump also stated that it was a form of "minimal" torture, and it was necessary. Ben Carson does not rule out approving its use, nor does Jeb Bush. Carly Fiorina supports her use, as did Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.
Effectiveness
Waterboarding has historically been used to 1) punish, 2) force recognition to be used in trials 3) elicit false recognition for political purposes, and 4) acquire factual intelligence for military purposes.
To show recognition
Its use is primarily to gain recognition rather than as a punishment dates back to the 15th century and the Spanish Inquisition. It was also used for the same purpose, albeit illegally, by recent US police officers in 1981. During the Korean War, North Korea used some enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) to achieve prisoner adherence and false confessions. Such a technique led to a US U.S. wrong to "confess" that there were plans to use biological weapons against North Korea. After 9/11, CIA interrogators searched for suspected terrorist suspected waterboards to obtain actionable intelligence, but prisoners falsely confessed to any interrogators who accused them of stopping the EIT. Khalid Shaykh Muhammad concocted a story to give his tormentors "everything they want to hear." Later, she pulls back, arguing that she was tortured when she made up the story. The same applies to the "confession" inflicted by EIT on Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali.
To get actionable intelligence
The effectiveness of Waterboarding as a technique for obtaining honest intelligence is useful and has not been proven. In May 2003, a senior CIA interrogator told the CIA Inspector General's Office that the EIT that was then used by the CIA was modeled after US resistance training to prepare soldiers for "physical torture" by the North Vietnamese. This torture, including waterboarding, is meant to extract "recognition for propaganda purposes" from US pilots "who have little actionable intelligence." If the CIA wants to obtain useful information rather than false recognition, he says, the CIA needs "different working models to interrogate terrorists." Nevertheless, with the active support of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA embraced the EIT approach proposed by two psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, both of whom had no interrogation experience. While Cheney continues to maintain that waterboarding has "produced phenomenal results" including tracking Osama bin Laden, a report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that "the use of the CIA for its enhanced interrogation technique is not an effective means of obtaining intelligence or obtaining cooperation from detainees. "There is no evidence, according to a report of 6,700 pages, that information obtained through waterboarding prevents attacks or saves lives, or that information obtained from detainees is not or can not be obtained through conventional interrogation methods.
Legality
International law
The question of whether waterboarding is torture in all cases, or in certain cases of waterboarding the CIA from Al-Qaeda prisoners, was never resolved by the courts.
All countries that have signed the United Nations Convention against Torture have agreed that they are subject to an explicit prohibition against torture under any circumstances. This is confirmed by Saadi v. Italy where the European Court of Human Rights, on February 28, 2008, upheld the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture by ruling that international law does not allow the exclusion of it. Article 2.2 of the Convention against Torture states that "any remarkable circumstances, whether war or war threats, internal political instability or other public emergencies, may be requested as a justification for torture." In addition, the signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are bound to Article 5, which states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Many signatories of the UN Convention against Torture have made special declarations and reservations
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments