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WikiLeaks: India "Condones Torture" in Kashmir
Indian policemen detain a demonstrating Kashmiri Shiite Muslim as he and other protesters defy a curfew for a Muharram procession in Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, Dec. 15, 2010.
/ AFP/Getty ImagesFive years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross told U.S. diplomats in New Delhi that the Indian government "condones torture" and systematically abused detainees in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Special Report: WikiLeaks
CableGate Live Updates
The Red Cross told the officials that hundreds of detainees were subjected to beatings, electrocutions and acts of sexual humiliation, the Guardian newspaper of London reported Thursday evening.
The disclosure comes from the trove of secret State Department cables released to a number of news outlets by the document-dumping website WikiLeaks.
In the '90s and early part of the 21st century, an insurgency of separatist and Islamic militants that received some support from Pakistan fought against Indian police and security forces.
The Red Cross made the shocking allegations after privately interviewing 1,296 detainees in detention centers in the Jammu and Kashmir regions and other sites in India between 2002 and 2004, the Guardian reported. With non-private interviews included, the organization met a total of 1,491 detainees during the two-year period, the Guardian reported.
From the interviews, 852 detainees said they were abused, including 681 who said they were tortured and 171 who said they were beaten, the Guardian reported.
Of those who said they were tortured:
- 381 said they were suspended from the ceiling
- 302 said "sexual" acts were done to them
- 294 said prison personnel sat on a bar across their thighs, crushing the muscles in their legs
- 234 said they were tortured with water
- 181 said their legs were "split 180 degrees"
"Numbers add up to more than 681, as many detainees were subjected to more than one form of IT [ill-treatment]," a cable said. "The abuse always takes place in the presence of officers and ... detainees were rarely militants (they are routinely killed), but persons connected to or believed to have information about the insurgency".
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On 911 a small pack of dogs bit us. We went after them all right, but just not in the American way we all beleive in.
George Bush, Dick Cheney and Ronald Rumsfield for the first time in American history ordered the use of tortue upon chained down prisoner's.
They openly boast and arrogantly smile without any ounce of fear of prosecution. That's the new American justice system, for the elite, without the people.
When they authorized tortue are flag became dark and the star's and stripes became stained with the agony of the helpless people they ordered tortured.
In my opinion that means torture is legal for all sides. Just last week one of our young soldiers was shown as a captive. He looked scared to death. Imagine what the Taliban are doing to that boy since Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield authorized all sides to torture.
At Bush's Guantanamo the Nazi would have been enviouse of our cold hearted ruthless act of inhumanity upon defensless teenage prisoners. One boy was 14, yet he was tortured.
When George Bush, Dick Cheney and Ronald Rumsfield be arrested and tried for war crimes. Our legal system is at stake. If they're above the law there is no law.
They openly boast of torture, saying it saved lives. I repute that and say it only stained our flag with shame. To save one life but serve the enemy is cowardly and to the point of being a traitor to everything we stand for. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness does not include torture.
We all want the terrorist in chains, in prison or dead, just not in the un-American way they chose.
Can you picture the agony that U.S. soldier is going thru as you read this. A slow, slow painful pitiful death, maybe for weeks, even monthe's or maybe years.
I know I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. I remember as a little boy back in 1954 watching a war movie on channel 9, where a Japenese officer was slowly pulling the finernails out of one of our boys. I thought how cruel and evil those Japenese were, but now it's our officer torturing, and the President openly bragging about it.
What has happened to our principles? Our we turning into a police state that cowers to the people with no shoes?
As a citizen and Vietnam Vet I call upon any Congress Member to investigate the boast of torture. Bring Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield in front of Congress to explain their torture.
I know one thing Bush say's a lawyer told him torture was legal as long as it doesn't kill anybody. Unbelievable but true. That mean's anything goes for both sides as long as it doesn't kill anyone. I would recommend slowly pulling out the finger nails. It looked so painful and evil in that 1950 movie.
Also if use of any techniques that hurt and are painful but do not kill a prisoner, can that be done by our police upon us?
A Congressional hearing is called for. Every thing we stand for is on the line.
One in the same.
One in the same
...but when we did it to terrorist suspects, it was called "enhanced interrogations"...
...or is it that our diplomats were confused about which term to use? Was that the real reason why this was kept secret?...
...or did India just conduct "enhanced interrogations?"
International diplomacy can be sooooooooooo confusing sometimes.
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If they didn't tell us about the torture... we wouldn't have to think about it and have it ruin our appetites.
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