During World War II, Japanese military personnel, especially the Kempeitai, and officers of the Gestapo,[111] the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture. [112] During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, the two-tenths incident occurred. This included waterboarding, in which the victim was tied or held behind their back, a cloth was placed over the mouth and nose, and water was poured over the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during torture, with interrogators beating the victim if they did not respond and the victim swallowing water as he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could no longer drink water, the interrogators beat or jumped on his swollen belly. [113] [114] [115] [unreliable source?] In December 2008, Robert Mueller, since December 5, 2008. In July 2001, as director of the FBI, he said that despite the Bush administration`s claims that waterboarding had disrupted “a series of attacks, perhaps dozens of attacks,” he did not believe that evidence obtained by the U.S. government through enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding interfered with an attack. [161] [162] The U.S. military used waterboarding, called “water cure,” during the Philippine-American War. It is not known where this practice comes from; It was probably adopted by the Filipinos, who themselves adopted it from the Spanish. [104] Reports of “atrocities” committed by soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to Senate hearings on U.S.
activities there. A New York Times editorial dated April 6, 1852 and a subsequent letter to the editor dated April 21, 1852. In April 1852, he documented a frequency of simulated drowning, then called “showering” or “hydropathic torture,” at Sing Sing Prison in New York City by an inmate named Henry Hagan, who had his head shaved after several other forms of beatings and abuse. And “it is certain that three and perhaps a dozen barrels of water were poured on his bare scalp.” Hagan was then put into a yoke. [100] A correspondent mentioned only as “H” later wrote: “Perhaps it would be good to develop the true character of this `hydropathic torture.` The jet of water is about an inch in diameter and falls from a height of seven or eight feet. The patient`s head is held in place by a board gripping the neck; The effect of this is that the water hitting the board bounces off the victim`s mouth and nostrils, almost causing strangulation. Congestion, sometimes of the heart or lungs, sometimes of the brain, often follows; And death has, in due course, freed some people from the continuation of the ordeal of the water cure. Since the water is officially administered, I guess it`s not murder! H. went on to cite an 1847 New York law that limited prison discipline to individual detention “for a short allowance.” [101] Although waterboarding has been depicted in several films and demonstrated at protest rallies, images of its actual use are scarce.
The CIA reportedly destroyed all the videos it made of the trial. The 1968 Washington Post photo of a captured North Vietnamese soldier being interrogated is arguably different, because instead of being tied to a board, the prisoner is held by two soldiers, while a third pours water from a canteen onto a cloth-covered face. [244] [245] An eyewitness account of Waterboarding is a painting by Vann Nath, a Cambodian artist who was imprisoned and tortured by the Khmer Rouge. After his release from Tuol Sleng prison in 1979, he began painting pictures of the abusive practices used there, including waterboarding to inform people, and said of the prisoners he heard screaming for help: “I want their souls to get something from what I paint.” [246] One of his waterboarding paintings shows a sterile room with a man tied to a board with iron bars. A cloth covers his head. Another man pours water from a watering can on his face. A similar board and watering can are on display at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Abu Zubaydah`s mock drowning, a drawing by Dmitry Borshch [ru], has been exhibited at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, DePaul University, the Brecht Forum, the Graduate Center, CUNY and the Palace of Culture and Science.
[247] [248] [249] In 2008, the Coney Island Waterboarding Thrill ride was presented at the Coney Island amusement park: spectators saw two models, one in orange uniform spread out on an inclined table, the other a masked interrogator. When the audience presented a dollar, the interrogator poured water on a rag on the nose and neck of the captured characters, after which the captured figure began to convulse. [250] [251] [252] On 22. In February 2008, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse announced that “the Department of Justice announced that it has launched an investigation into the role of senior officials and Justice Department lawyers in authorizing and/or supervising the use of waterboarding in the United States. The secret services. [239] [240] On October 15, 2008, it was reported that the Bush administration had issued two secret memos to the CIA in June 2003 and June 2004 explicitly advocating waterboarding and other torture techniques against al-Qaeda suspects. [160] The memos were granted only after “repeated requests” from the CIA, which at the time feared that the White House might try to distance itself from the case. The agency`s sales representatives believed they could easily be blamed for using the techniques without written permission or proper authority. [160] Until then, the Bush administration had never been specifically bound by the recognition of torture practices. Chase J.
Nielsen, one of the American airmen who participated in the Doolittle Raid after the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese hijackers. [116] At his post-war war crimes trial, he testified, “Well, I was lying on the ground with my arms and legs stretched out on my back, with a guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and placed on my face and water was poured over it. They poured water on that towel until I was almost unconscious because of strangulation, then they calmed down until I caught my breath, and then they started all over again. I more or less felt like I was drowning and panting between life and death. [36] In 2007, Senator John McCain stated that the U.S. military hanged Japanese soldiers for simulating American POWs during World War II. [117] [118] [12] A minimum sentence for Japanese soldiers convicted of waterboarding was 15 years. [119] It is not clear that waterboarding does not meet the threshold of seriousness to qualify as torture. The threshold of gravity, which is decisive for distinguishing torture from other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, is a question of graduation, which is based on several elements, but cannot be limited to the presence of bodily harm.
A relevant factor is the presence of lasting effects. The question then arises as to whether the experience of being subjected to a near-death experience by suffocation during detention has long-term effects. This is consistent with the notion of persistent psychological harm used in the Office of the Legal Counsel`s memorandum of 14 March 2003 [PDF], which is considered likely to cause “permanent, but not necessarily permanent, harm”. The memo even includes the development of post-traumatic stress disorder, which can persist for a longer period of time if left untreated, as a condition that could meet the requirement for prolonged harm. In summary, while waterboarding, despite its long-lasting effects, is considered a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and could be narrowly characterized as non-torture, the practice of waterboarding still constitutes a violation of article 1 of the 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture. As such, it constitutes an illegal practice that can lead to international condemnation of the United States as a state implicated in violations of one of the fundamental provisions of international human rights. However, Professor Addicott`s narrow definition should be questioned when considering the long-term effects that a near-death experience such as simulated drowning has been demonstrated. Human Rights Watch reported on specific interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration, including waterboarding, locking detainees in a dark box for 18 hours, prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to heat or cold, pressing prisoners against walls, and using stressful positions.