Mystery still surrounds the methods of torture that were practiced behind the closed cells of the US Guantanamo prison, despite the passage of many years since the establishment of this prison, amid international and human rights criticisms directed at this prison located in Guantanamo Bay in the far southeast of Cuba.
Guantanamo prison was known as one of the worst prisons around the world, due to the practice of all forms of human rights violations inside it.
what’s new?
One of the detainees in the Guantanamo prison, Abu Zubaydah, gave the most comprehensive and detailed account to date of the brutal methods to which inmates are subjected.
Abu Zubaydah painted about 40 paintings chronicling the torture he and his colleagues were subjected to between 2002 and 2006.
The cartoons, which Abu Zubaydah explained in his own words, depict horrific acts of violence, sexual and religious humiliation, and psychological terror against him and other detainees.
Abu Zubaydah drew these pictures from memory in his Guantanamo prison cell and sent them to his lawyer, Professor Mark Denbo.
Together with his students at the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law, Denbo has compiled Zubeida’s images and words in a new report, published in the Guardian newspaper.
‘The forever prisoner’: Abu Zubaydah’s drawings expose the US’s depraved torture policy https://t.co/nfir8FNoMH
— The Guardian (@guardian) May 11, 2023
Who is Abu Zubaydah?
Born in Saudi Arabia, Abu Zubaydah moved to the West Bank in Israeli-occupied Palestine as a teenager, and was captured by CIA, FBI and ISI agents in Pakistan in late March 2002.
Guantánamo Prisoner’s Graphic Details of US Torture https://t.co/UZgxN4xPbC
— gaijingirl2004 Bronx Leftist/Green. 🦺 🇵🇸✡️ (@gaijingirl2004) May 13, 2023
“Abu Zubaydah” was wounded in the thigh, testicle and abdomen during the raid that led to his arrest, and Abu Zubaydah – who was mistakenly believed to be a senior member of Al Qaeda – was transferred to the CIA.
The new report comes at a critical moment for “Abu Zubaydah,” especially since he is known as a “prisoner forever,” because he was not accused of a crime and was not offered any possibility of his release.
International calls for his release
Last week, a United Nations body called for his immediate release, finding that his continued detention may be a crime against humanity.
The international legal representative for the detainee, Helen Duffy, said that the verdict issued by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is consistent with Abu Zubaydah’s visual account of his torture.
Drawings tell what cannot be written or said.
Zubaydah’s sketches provide a unique visual record of the US government’s use of torture in the aftermath of 9/11.
The CIA filmed videos of Zubaydah being tortured, but they were then destroyed in violation of a court order, while the 6,700-page torture report by the Senate Intelligence Committee remains classified nearly a decade after it was completed.
Although the full Senate report was never made public, its conclusion is well known: that the mistreatment of Abu Zubaydah and other detainees failed to elicit any new intelligence. In other words, “torture does not work.”
Abu Zubaydah, 52, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and turned over to several CIA dark sites in Poland, Lithuania and elsewhere.
He was transferred to Guantánamo in 2006, where he has been held ever since.
His lawyer said: “The US initially claimed that he was a senior al-Qaeda operative, but was forced to admit that he was not even a member of the terrorist group.
He added, “Everyone agrees, they tortured the wrong man.. They moved forward anyway so they could get permission to torture other people.”
Threat of rape
Among the images published by the Guardian for the first time was one showing masked agents physically threatening Abu Zubaydah with rape. The detainee also reconstructs the extremely violent method used against him, known as the “wall”.
In another picture, Abu Zubaydah draws himself chained and naked in front of a female investigator.
Another graphic shows guards threatening to desecrate the Qur’an — techniques not officially approved by the Ministry of Justice.
“Sexual assault was never approved, nudity was not approved, humiliation in the presence of women was not approved, no one was subjected to prolonged torture to the point of exhaustion or worse,” the lawyer said.
Waterboarding
Abu Zubaydah was subjected to simulated drowning 83 times. The detainee records a variety of techniques, including being placed in a coffin-sized box that was filled with water up to his nose. He wrote that he had been “terrified of drowning all day”.
Abu Zubaydah’s comments, slightly edited for length and clarity, describe the abuses he personally suffered as the first victim of the US torture program.
But the lawyer said his client produced the material not only to highlight his own suffering but also that of many others who have been subjected to the same methods.
According to the 2014 Senate report summary, at least 119 individuals have fallen victim to this program.
Abu Zubaydah said: “Sometimes they would use a towel wrapped in sticky tape and put it around the prisoner’s neck and hit him against the cement or the wooden wall.
He added: “They would suddenly enter the prisoner’s cell and start hitting him against the wall without a towel or even gloves, and deliberately hit him hard on his head and back several times and would continue to do so for a long time until he lost consciousness, then they would wake him up with cold water and continue the beating even if he did not faint, then they would start slapping him.” On his face while they were asking him questions and making obscene words at him, they continued to hit him severely on his head and back. And the buttocks until it collapses to the floor.”
Abu Zubaydah continued: “Waterboarding is not only by using water and boards.. In this type they put him in a wooden coffin for a long time until he urinates on himself, with his hands behind his back, or tied in front of him. If he is tied from the front, he will remain in this state for several days.. and left soaked in his excrement.”
He explained, “I sit on the chair for weeks on end, and I am completely naked.. very hungry.. I feel frozen from the very cold weather.. I almost hallucinated because of the psychological and physical pressure.. In addition to sleep deprivation, I feel like I’m really hallucinating.. Then a woman came immediately dressed in very light clothes (as if it was summer).. She sat next to me and there were two men in very thick clothes (suitable for the North Pole)..!! I didn’t move at all, not even to cover my genitals as I should follow religious beliefs, but when they spoke to me.. I completely covered my genitals.. I shouted to them: “At least give me something to cover my genitals in front of that female.. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? ”
And he added, “This drawing shows the detainee being threatened with rape.
Wherever the detainee resisted, the guards would place a large stick or a larger one in the anus.
And he continued by saying: “I could hear the sound of an electric drill moving with force and violence that no other sound could cover, and I could hear the person being tortured pleading and crying, then I could hear the person being tortured screaming and threatening that he would commit suicide.”
