By Christina Berger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
LONDON, England — UK military interrogation training manuals told interrogators to use techniques such as enforced nakedness and sleep deprivation in what is an apparent violation of international law, according to a recent newspaper report. In the exclusive report, the Guardian made public the information contained in secret military interrogation training aids and manuals from 2005 and 2008, as well as more recent materials.
The manuals advocate methods to promote humiliation, insecurity, exhaustion, and fear in the prisoners before and during questioning. A PowerPoint training aid from September 2005 obtained by the Guardian says “Get them naked. Keep them naked if they do not follow commands.” A manual from 2008 also advocated enforced nakedness. The training materials tell interrogators to remove the prisoner’s clothes and then search behind his foreskin and spread his buttocks. According to the Guardian, “[t]his is part of the conditioning process, rather than as a security measure.”
More recent training materials tell interrogators that blindfolds, earmuffs, and plastic handcuffs are necessary tools to be used in interrogation. Also, although the prisoner must be allowed to rest for eight hours in every 24 hours, only four hours of that is required to be unbroken sleep. Additionally, there is a section in the training materials entitled, “positional asphyxiation – signs and symptoms”.
The Guardian makes the claim that these abusive techniques violate the 1949 Geneva conventions which prohibit any “physical or moral coercion,” as well as coercion used to get information.
This report comes at an especially sensitive time. WikiLeaks recently published secret U.S. files from the war in Iraq showing coalition forces ignored torture conducted by Iraq security forces. In addition, the high court in London will hear arguments next month from the lawyers representing more than 100 Iraqis who claim they were held and tortured during interrogation by British forces between March 2003 and April 2007.
Reuters quoted a defense ministry spokesman as saying, “There are ongoing enquiries precisely to establish the previous and current basis for how we conduct our detention operations.” The spokesman added, “The military … is committed to constantly trying to improve these parts of its operations.”
According to the Guardian, [a]ddressing the legal status of detainees who may later face prosecution, the [training] material states: “Let the judicial process deal with them after you have finished.”
For more information, please see:
REUTERS — UK military interrogations ‘may break Geneva rules’ — 26 October 2010
TELEGRAPH — British interrogation techniques advice ‘included sensory deprivation’ — 26 October 2010
GUARDIAN — Humiliate, strip, threaten: UK military interrogation manuals discovered — 25 October 2010
