by Gouda » Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:25 am
From <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Former_Gitmo_detainee_paints__0621.html">RAW:</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Former detainee paints harrowing portrait of life at Guantánamo Bay</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Ex-detainee says suicide attempts were commonplace<br><br>Jailers at the US base in Guantánamo Bay have coerced confessions they knew to be false, beaten prisoners to the point of disability, and given detainees psychotropic drugs they believed were for common physical ailments, according to an account one former detainee gave RAW STORY.<br>...<br><br>There, abuse continued as "the rule, not the exception," Ahmed recalls. Interrogations would be as often as twice a day, or as lengthy as twelve hours, he adds.<br>...<br><br>A change in leadership, he says, changed detainee life for the worse.<br><br>"The treatment got really, really bad when <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>[Major General] Miller</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> came," Ahmed avers. "That's when it all started. That's when the torture and interrogation with dogs, hot and cold environment -- stuff like that started happening."<br>...<br><br>When asked what other forms of abuse he personally experienced, Ahmed says quickly and gravely, "sexual abuse." A strange silence follows. When asked for specifics, he says simply, "I don't really want to go into details."<br>...<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Major General Geoffrey Miller</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> took over at Guantánamo Bay in November of 2002, with the aim of bringing order to the camp. He has since been reassigned to head US operations at Abu Ghraib.<br>...<br><br>Ahmed believes that Guantánamo interrogators were "obviously" aware that they were extracting false information from detainees. "By torturing people, you cannot make them confess the truth," he explains.<br>...<br><br>Ahmed also raised disturbing allegations relating to the camp's psychiatric policies. He describes a prison population that is largely unaware they are being given a psychotropic drug.<br><br>"There was no help given in terms of psyche or anything," he explains. "The only medication they gave you was Prozac--for everything, they gave you Prozac. They offered me Prozac."<br>...<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>