No More Guantánamos thanks Jeanne Herrick-Stare, creator of TorturesNotUs and now Policy Counsel for the Center for Victims of Torture, for her compilation and analysis of these materials. Reproduced with permission.
[Editor's Note] To stay abreast of developments in the federal district court action concerning detainees held at Bagram Airfield outside Kabul, Afghanistan, see Court Cases.
14 Mar 2009: Torture at the hands of the CIA: Detainees who were interrogated by the CIA at secret "black sites" and were later transferred to G'Bay were interviewed at G'Bay by the ICRC. The ICRC produced a secret (now-leaked) report described by investigative reporter Mark Danner in the 9 Apr 2009 NY Review of Books article, "U.S. Torture: Voices from the Black Sites." A shorter op-ed about the ICRC's description of the detainees' treatment at the hands of the CIA as "torture" and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" (the language of war crimes), appeared in the NYTimes 14 Mar 2009, "Tales from Torture's Dark World." Here's the ICRC report.
2 Mar 2009: Destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes. In 2004, the ACLU brought a FOIA lawsuit in the federal district court (SDNY) to uncover videotapes of CIA interrogations of detained suspected "enemy combatants." The court's discovery process was stayed pending a criminal investigation by John Durham, Acting U.S. Attny for the Eastern Dist. of Virginia concerning destruction of certain videotapes, thought to be two in number. The deadline for the stay having passed, the Acting U.S. Attorney for SDNY sent a letter to the judge in which he notified the court that 92 (ninety-two) videotapes of CIA detainee interrogations had been destroyed. Stay tuned.
26 Feb 2009: Adam Serwer's article "The Blight of Bagram' in The American Prospect presents some of the nuanced difficulties that the Obama administration faces in dealing with the U.S. detention facility at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, as well as description of Obama administration actions that have caused distress among human rights advocates.
22 Jan 2009: The President's Executive Order Ensuring Lawful Interrogations also orders closure of all CIA detention facilities, and that the International Committee pf toe Red Cross be given notification of and access to all U.S. detainees.
17 Aug 2007. "The Black Sites: a Rare Look Inside the CIA Interrogation Program," by Jane Mayer. Report in The New Yorker Magazine
17 Aug 2007. Amnesty International report describing events and policies leading to Pres. Bush's 20 July 2007 Executive Order. The Exec Order provided that the CIA must abide by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, and then set forth the administration's position describing the parameters of Common Article 3.
02 Nov 2005. "CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons" By Dana Priest, The Washington Post.