Marga's Note: The UN Committee Against Torture, the United Nations organ charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention Against Torture, has previously opined that sleep deprivation and hooding of prisoners constitute torture. Apparently, until this change US policy has been to torture prisoners.
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The new U.S. commander overseeing Army-run prisons in Iraq has ordered military intelligence operatives to stop using sleep deprivation as an interrogation tactic and placing hoods over the heads of detainees.
As part of a broad reassessment of the military's detention programs in Iraq, the commander also promised Tuesday to cut the population at the Abu Ghraib prison by more than half.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who previously commanded the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, disclosed the policy changes during an interview with a small group of reporters. Miller, 54, was transferred to Iraq last month to take over the 14 military-run prisons here, weeks before images of detainees being physically and sexually degraded at Abu Ghraib were leaked and broadcast around the world.
washingtonpost.com: U.S. to Stop Certain Interrogation Practices
Posted by marga at May 4, 2004 05:18 PM | TrackBack