Rule of violence (at Guantanamo)

[greatauntoftriplets]

Rule of violence

David Rose
Sunday October 3, 2004
The Observer

Inside Camp Delta, the British former Guantánamo prisoner Shafiq Rasul told me: 'There's only one rule that matters. You have to obey whatever US government personnel tell you to do.' The cost of disobedience was high: possibly a visit from the camp's 'Extreme Reaction Force (ERF)', a squad of guards in riot gear, which is said by several detainees to have carried out brutal assaults.

When these allegations first surfaced, American spokesmen denied them. A leaked internal Guantánamo document, published here for the first time and headed 'Detainee Standards of Conduct', suggests Rasul and the others were telling the truth.

'The following is a set of standards detainees WILL follow at ALL times,' it begins. 'Failure to follow the following standards will result in strict punishment by US security forces.'

The first two rules allow 30 minutes for detainees to eat their meals, and just five minutes for showers, although here 'amputees are authorised 10-15 minutes for showers'. Then they become more menacing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1318625,00.html