GROUP ASSIGNMENT (PMA)

UHP 6013 Global Development Economic and Social Issues

GUANTANAMO BAY: A CASE OF HUMAN RIGHT

SYED IDRUS SYED OMAR

MD 131132

SHAMSUDIN BIN ABDUL MAJID

MD 131113

FADZIL ADLY ISHAK

MD 131143

MD HANAFIAH BIN NORDIN

MD 131158

LECTURER: Dr. Muhammad Fathi bin Yusof

Guantanamo Bay was started by the Bush Administrative in 2002 to hold people that they felt
were connected to terrorism. Guantanamo Bay is located inside a U.S. Naval Base in Cuba.
Therefore, it is considered outside the U.S. legal jurisdiction. This means that they do not have
the rights of a U.S. citizen under arrest or the rights of a prisoner of war. Detainment areas
consisted of Camp delta, Camp Iguana and Camp X-ray. The Joint Task Force Guantanamo
(JTF-GTMO) of the United States government operates the facility.
The Geneva Convention is agreed upon by most of the countries in the world and sets
rules about the treatment of prisoners of war. The Bush administration has agreed to apply the
Geneva Conventions to all terrorism suspects in U.S. custody, bowing to the Supreme Court's
recent rejection of policies that have imprisoned hundreds for years without trials. However, with
the promise of the U.S. Government complying with the Geneva Convention are still not been
met at Guantanamo Bay. On April 19, 2013 an article in The New York Times has reported that
nearly 100 detainees have gone on hunger strikes. Currently in Guantanamo Bay more and more
detainees are hunger striking because of the harsh treatment that they are receiving.
The U.S government is violating human rights and is responsible for imprisoning people
without charge or trial. The United States maintains a detention center in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
Since 2002 the U.S uses the detention center to hold supposed terrorists and other enemies of the
U.S. But ever since the detention center was opened there has been great concern involving the
legality of the center and the treatment of the prisoners. The U.S government should close
Guantanamo Bay because it is imprisoning people under the false belief that they are terrorists,
these innocent men are tortured for information about future terrorist attacks that they do not
have and now many of the Guantanamo Bay detainees are on hunger strike and are being
painfully force fed.
Out of all 600 hundred residents of Guantanamo bay very few have been proven guilty
for terrorist activity and none of them have had a trial. This action is against human rights and
should not be tolerated any longer. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Articles 6 and 10, that clearly state that Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a

person before the law and that Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing
by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of
any criminal charge against him. Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Meaning that the
U.S government is violating two of the most important human rights. These Human Rights are
not to be taken lightly they are not guidelines that you can simply choose not to follow and there
wont be consequences. Denying a human being a human right is denying equality and when we
deny equality we fall apart. The only way to move forward is through unity.
Unfortunately these are not the only two human rights that are being violated. The U.S
government has many secrets and most of them are secrets because it reveals what the U.S
government really is. Through the past few years it has become clear that the U.S has been using
Interrogation techniques that resemble torture. Some autopsies have been performed on some
of the bodies of Guantanamo Bay detainees that have confirmed that several detainees were
victims of a homicide. There is also evidence of physical abuse and a lack of sleep. The Red
Cross has confirmed that all the medical, physiological and emotional information of detainees
has been given to the interrogators of Guantanamo Bay in order to make interrogations more
effective by taking advantage of the detainees weaknesses. For adults this pain is excruciating
but for children the pain is magnified in the past 3 children between the ages of 13 and 15 has
been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay believed to have been working with terrorists. Although
these children were given different living conditions than the rest of the prisoners at the
Guantanamo, they were still put into detention with no trial or access to a lawyer and with little
or no understanding of why they have been imprisoned. But the most painful form of mental
torture for the detainees is the fact that they have no idea how long they are going to remain
imprisoned.
So far no detainees have died of the hunger strike due to the fact that the medical staff
and the guards of Guantanamo Bay have been force feeding the prisoners. The feeding process
starts with the guards taking a prisoner to a room where the prisoner is to be fed. The prisoner is
then strapped down to a chair, where a member of the medical staff pushes a small pipe up the
prisoners nose and down into the stomach of the prisoner. The medical staff then pours liquid
proteins and vitamins into the tube and the food then travels down the pipe and into the stomach
of the prisoner. This process is extremely painful and completely unnatural and yet according to
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Colonel Julian who is part of the staff at Guantanamo says that this is a completely legal process
and is performed often at hospitals for patients that have trouble eating due to various reasons
and yet according to the World Health Organizations declaration of Tokyo, force feeding is
specifically prohibited. According to the UN human rights commission the force feeding taking
place in Guantanamo is another form of torture, a charge the US firmly has repeatedly denied.
This is the kind of behavior we cannot tolerate; the U.S government is just as much a monster as
the terrorists they fight.
In the twenty-first century human rights has emerged in the core of theater and
performance. Detainees hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay attracted the attention of the media. If
the media would have never mentioned the detainees hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay
Americans would have being unaware of the treatment at Guantanamo Bay. President Obama
would have never mentioned the treatment at Guantanamo Bay. The Freedom of Information Act
is a law that gives you the right to access information from the federal government. It is often
described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government (United States
Department of Justice). With an act that allows citizens to request certain information on their
government does not mean that our government will hold any truth or responsibility to the
information. Under the Freedom Information Act Frank W. Putman, MD requested information
on the manuals that the Central Intelligence Agency holds on interrogation. With manuals on
different techniques of torture from July 1963 the Central Intelligence Agency method of training
on different techniques of interrogations used to extract information at no concern of the rights to
a human being. Given the importance of obtaining true information, military, police, and
government intelligence organizations have developed psychological and physiological
approaches to extract information, which they hope is accurate, from interrogates.
The Obama Administrative has promised to close down Guantanamo Bay, but the
detention center remains open. With 66 detainees starving themselves and each day the number
increases the treatment at Guantanamo Bay has not changed instead the medical assistants are
force feeding the detainees. At one point the number of detainees on the hunger strike at
Guantanamo Bay was only 43 and now has risen from 52 to 63. Some of the detainees were
promised to be released. But later they were denied their release. The detainees were denied
counsel from legal representatives. Four months in the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay has
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caused the detainees to use the hunger strike a reminder to the world of their existence at
Guantanamo Bay and the inhumane treatment.
The detainees at Guantanamo Bay have no chance of being released. The detainees
Qurans are being searched. The right of having legal representation is no longer allowed to visit
at Guantanamo Bay. Nearly 100 detainees are on a hunger strike. One-third of the detainees are
being force-fed and a handful is in a hospital. After four months President Obama realizes the
problem. However, Guantanamo Bay still remains open. President Obama National Security
Speech ensures the reason behind the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Khadre
supported the Al-Qaeda and was later captured in sent to Guantanamo Bay in Afghanistan.
Khadre is a Canadian citizen and was later returned to Canada. However, the 56 Yemenis are still
being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Murat Kurnaz a legal resident of Germany was wrongfully accused of terrorist activities.
Kurnaz had arrived almost five years earlier, shackled hand-to-waist, waist-to-ankles, to a bolt on
the airplane floor and guarded by 10 guards. Because of the treatment that Murnaz received at
Guantanamo Bay under the misunderstanding of his involvement with terrorist he is now
mentally scared. He has being released from Guantanamo Bay, but the remaining detainees are
still locked away at the detention center. With detainees hunger striking, force feed and in
hospitals. The promises of closing Guantanamo Bay by President Obama, promise of Americans
will not torture and President Obama promising to make sure of it has being a failed attempt.
After the attack on America by Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001 America went to war.
Thousands of Americans killed, billions of dollars in damage, and now ten years of military and
security measures in response, we are still living with the war, an uncertain future, and many
unanswered questions. It is understood that torturing the detainees is necessary to keep
Americans safe. However, the disregard to the detainees not been treated like human beings
should not be ignored. They did involve themselves with terrorist activities. But these detainees
did not commit the crime. They just have the necessary information that is needed to stop future
terrorist attacks. These detainees are now homeless and without a country to call home. The hope
of the detainees release and visitation rights has been denied at Guantanamo Bay because they
are not American citizens.

Torturing another human being is unethical. However, the Bush Administrative has found a
means to turn ethics in torture. The ethic base on torturing detainees at Guantanamo Bay is to
extract information about future terrorist attacks. Below the list of torture techniques at the
detention camps:
1. Sexual Assault/Humiliation Techniques
Detainees in US custody in Abu Ghraib, Kandahar and Bagram (where many were taken to
before Guantanamo) have reported being sodomised with broomsticks, a chemical light or
rifles. Other forms of sexual humiliation reported have been; parading men naked in front of
female soldiers, forcing them to wear womens underwear and dance with other men, forcing
them to undress in front of female interrogators and guards, touching their genitals or provoking
them in a humiliating way and forcing them to watch pornography. Most detainees in U.S.
custody have alleged that they were either raped, threatened with rape, or anally probed. Sexual
violence is a war crime. Sexual humiliation is used to induce feelings of humiliation and fear.

2. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep deprivation is used by torturers because it makes a person more suggestible, reduces
psychological resistance and it reduces the bodys capacity to resist pain. Sleep deprivation is a
very effective torture technique. The Committee against Torture (CAT) has noted that sleep
deprivation used for prolonged periods constitutes a breach of the CAT, and is primarily used to
break down the will of the detainee. Sleep deprivation can cause impaired memory and cognitive
functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations, psychosis,
lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress, anxiety and
depression. For more information, see Gretchen Borchelt, JD & Christian Pross, MD Systematic
Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces, Torture, vol.15 (1), 2005; Sleep deprivation was
authorized under the 2002 Department of Defense Memo in the form of 20-hour interrogations.
The U.S. military authorized sleep deprivation for its prisoners for up to seventy-two hours.

3. Sensory Deprivation
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Sensory deprivation is used to instill a sense of fear, disorientation and cause dependency on
their captor. In the 1950s the CIA funded a study into human behavior and mind control in
response to the Cold War. Dr Hebb of McGill University conducted studies on people to induce a
state akin to psychosis by placing students in air-conditioned cubicles with earmuffs, gloves and
goggles. Within 24 hours they began to experience hallucinations, and by 48 hours complete
breakdown and disintegration of personality. Sensory deprivation has also been attributed to
increased pain sensitivity and increased psychological stress. According to the Kubark manual,
sensory deprivation makes the detainee more susceptible to the interrogator.

4. Solitary Confinement/Isolation
Solitary confinement is strictly prohibited under international law. It is a cruel practice, which
causes permanent psychological damage. The impacts can range from hallucinations, emotional
damage, delusions and impaired cognitive functioning to anxiety and depression. Solitary
confinement is outlawed under the Convention Against Torture, ICCPR and the Geneva
Conventions. Camp 5, 6, and Echo are also considered solitary under international law; in other
words, David spent the majority of his time in solitary confinement.

5. Mock Executions
It is contrary to international law to allow a prisoner to think that he is going to be executed. The
ICRC complained to the military officials saying that The detainees think they are being taken
to be shot. Apparently military officials debated whether to tell the detainees the truth, but
decided to wait until after the first round of interrogations.

6. Forced Medication
Medical experimentation was outlawed under international law since its use in Nazi
concentration camps. The history of U.S. medical experimentation, for interrogation purposes,
began with the MKULTRA program, which was enacted by the CIA in response to the Cold War.
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A number of biological agents and drugs were tested on people, including prisoners and
prostitutes, to find substances that led to mind control and behavior modification. Recently the
US military has confirmed that they used high doses of Larium that caused neuropsychiatric
effects- including suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and psychosis.

7. The Use of Dogs to Scare Detainees

The use of dogs to threaten and intimidate detainees can be traced back to the France, Belgium
and the concentration camps during Nazi Germany (See, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy).
In a 2002 memo, Defense Department lawyer, Jim Haynes wrote a memo authorizing the use of
sleep deprivation, stress positions, nudity and dogs. An investigation into FBI allegations of
detainee abuse (The Schmidt Report) found that military interrogators improperly used military
working dogs during interrogation sessions to threaten detainees . The use of dogs to
intimidate at Guantanamo was such an effective technique it was transported to Abu Ghraib,
Afghanistan and Iraq in an approved plan to scare-up prisoners.

8. Temperature Extremes
Using temperature extremes as a form of torture has been used for many years by many different
countries. It was the Brazilians who switched from heat to cold cells in 1966. The cold cell,
which was used in Guantanamo was authorized in 2005 as part of the CIAs enhanced
interrogation techniques, however, they were using it before long before. The Haynes 2002
memo, signed off by Donald Rumsfeld, authorized this technique. Leaving people in
Sweatboxes has been used for centuries. In Vietnam, shipping containers left over by American
forces were used to torture people in the intense heat of the tropical climate. The same technique
has been applied in Guantanamo. An investigation into improper interrogations noted this
technique noting; That military interrogators improperly used extremes of heat and cold during
their interrogation of detainees.

9. Sensory Bombardment (Noise)

Noise has been used by torturers to either mask sounds of others being tortured, such as when
childrens music was played by the Gestapo when beating Walter Bauer, or when they are trying
to disrupt sleep, terrorise or create emotions within the prisoners. In 2004, a U.S. military official
admitted that uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair with
shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and
screaming loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air
conditioning was turned up to maximum levels.

10. Watching Others Being Tortured

Witnessing torture and violence can have the same psychological effects of actually experiencing
the violence. Scientists have found that psychological manipulation techniques, such as
deprivation, humiliation and forced stress positions cause as much mental stress as physical pain.

11. Psychological Techniques

Psychologically abusive techniques were used to disrupt sleep and disorient detainees. The CIAs
KUBARK manual suggests that interrogations aided by the use of temperature extremes, noise
bombardment and sleep deprivation are able to induce regression, psychic disintegration, and
feelings of helplessness that lower prisoners defenses. This of course, leads to signed
confessions and more malleable prisoners.
During interrogations, intelligence branches and BSCT teams (psychologists and psychiatrists)
sat behind double sided glass to watch detainees being interrogated. Their job was to provide
information on the detainees mental health, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The Kiley Report

confirms that medical personnel were utilized during interrogations. The ICRC called this a
flagrant violation of medical ethics.
Seemingly menial techniques were also employed, such as forcing detainees to read childrens
books. News organizations reported that an interrogator read a Harry Potter book to a detainee
for hours in order to wear down the detainee. Keeping detainees in a childlike state was
considered advantageous to the interrogators because they were more suggestible and malleable.
The detainees at Guantanamo Bay did not commit a crime. However, the detainees did involve
themselves with terrorist attacks. The detainees are an accessory to a crime that they are being
tormented for. The torment of never being released, having no visitation rights and having their
Al-Qurans searched at Guantanamo Bay is enough torture. The detainees rights as a human
being has being stripped away.

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