US challenged over 'secret jails' (BBC)

[moodforaday]

US challenged over 'secret jails'

Two Yemeni prisoners have claimed they were held in secret, underground US jails for more than 18 months, Amnesty International has said.

The human rights group has called on the US to reveal details of the alleged secret detention of suspects abroad.

Amnesty has said it fears the case is part of a "much broader picture" in which the US is holding prisoners at a network of undisclosed locations.

The US state department had no immediate comment to make.
(snip)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4743485.stm

[hootinholler]

1. Extraordinary rendition. n/t

[DBoon]

2. You could almost say we have an "archipelago"

of undisclosed prisons across the world.

[thecrow]

3. The US state department had no immediate comment

nor will they.... ya think?

[joemurphy]

5. Do we maintain secret prisons? We'll get back to ya on it! n/t

[joemurphy]

4. Y'know it's getting so every night, when I come home from

work and I start reading the posts here, I feel the need to write
my congressman. It never used to be this way for me. It's like constant outrage.

Who the fuck is responsible for this shit?

I feel so impotent. So unable to do anything about what these anonymous decision-makers are doing to my country.

I'm so depressed about this.

[wli]

6. I wonder what the prisoner capacity is

Also, it's worth noting that the German concentration camps could well have been described as "secret prisons."

[Mnemosyne]

7. Thank you maekjed. The shame grows here. n/t

[OneBlueSky]

8. secret jails? . . . we don't know nothin' . . .

'bout no stinkin' secret jails! . . .

predicted response . . .

[hootinholler]

9. Kickin this....

Cmon peeps, this is importante! One more rec gets it seen a lot more.

-Hoot

[brainshrub]

10. 'One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1540552,00.html

Benyam Mohammed traveled from London to Afghanistan in July 2001, but after September 11 he fled to Pakistan. He was arrested at Karachi airport on April 10 2002, and describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. These are extracts from his diary:

"They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor's scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they'd electrocute me. Maybe castrate me.

They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed ... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming.

One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. "I told you I was going to teach you who's the man," eventually said.

They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor."

###

Be sure to read the rest of the diary. It's chilling to think that it was our government that was directly responsible for his pain.

Mohammed's story is only the tip of the ice-berg since the Bush Administration decided that the Geneva Convention does not apply to them. For example, there is another set of photos from Abu Grabe that was supposed to be released last month, but the Pentagon has dragged the ACLU back into court in order to prevent them from being released to the public. Allegedly, the materials include videos of children being raped, men being savaged by dogs and other perverse behavior.

[Ambrose]

11. Washington Post article...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201702.html

If any of this is true then it is sick beyond the realm of anything I can fathom. I hope this guy is making this stuff up. :(