This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Handcuffing During GSS Interrogations
During interrogations, detainees are isolated and prevented from meeting with an attorney, family members, or ICRC representatives. As a result, they're "subjected entirely to the interrogators' control at all times during the period of interrogation."
They're kept painfully handcuffed in various ways, including "regular" protracted cuffing of hands behind their back as well as their arms and forearms in positions causing severe pain, suffering, and at times permanent harm. PACTI calls "high cuffing" the most extreme form.
GSS interrogators claim the procedure is to protect detainees' well being and prevent their escape. However, they're kept in a secured, closed, carefully guarded facility, making that likelihood nearly impossible.
Detainees are placed on an unupholstered wood, metal, or rigid plastic chair of standard office size. Both hands are shackled behind their back with metal cuffs connected by a short chain to the chair's seat. Most often legs are also restrained, and the chair always is fixed to the floor.
Detainees are held that way throughout interrogation lasting many hours or days, except for short meal breaks and even shorter bathroom ones. Protracted sitting alone with no possibility of shifting positions, standing, or stretching is itself extremely uncomfortable. Being painfully shackled makes it much worse, and any attempt to slightly adjust the hands results in further tightening of the cuffs.
As explained above, paresthesia often results that includes loss of feeling, weakness, and pain in the back, arms, wrists, shoulders and neck - the entire upper body. Chest muscles are also strained, breathing impeded, and long-term neurological damage is common.
The Scale of Cuffing Detainees with Their Hands Behind Their Back
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
2
