US armed forces used torture 'systematically'

RINF News, 27.06.2007

The US armed forces have been using torture indiscriminately, a human rights group charged Monday.

“Moreover, more than 100,000 pages of government documents released in response to [an] American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] Freedom of Information Act request reveal that a pervasive and systemic pattern of harsh interrogation techniques have been used by military personnel indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay,” the ACLU said in a statement Monday.

“The documents include evidence that detainees have been beaten; forced into painful stress positions; threatened with death; sexually and religiously humiliated; stripped naked; hooded and blindfolded; exposed to extreme heat and cold; denied food and water; isolated for prolonged periods; subjected to mock drownings; and intimated by dogs,” the group said.

The ACLU and other human rights groups hope that the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress will act on their reports to rein in the Bush administration and force it to change its interrogation policies. Congress has already stepped up its efforts to monitor such secret activities in the war on terror.