14.05.2004
1.00pm - By PAUL VALLELY
(on edit:link)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3566427&thesection=news&thesubsection=worldExperts in torture are not surprised by the details in the stories of abuse which continue to emerge from US-run prisons in Iraq. And the more that emerges the less it seems to be the work of a handful of sadists or perverts. Rather they are in line with sophisticated techniques of modern torture.
At the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in London, which has dealt with tens of thousands of torture cases over the past three decade, one of its senior staff, Sherman Carroll yesterday said: "The idea of it being a few bad apples won't wash. It looks increasingly like a systematic process.
"And there have clearly been conscious attempts by psychologists to make the techniques culturally relative to a Muslim population," he added, referring to reports of enforced nakedness, the simulation of oral sex, forced masturbation and naked human pyramids which seemed calculated particularly to offend followers of Islam.
The techniques, which rest on principles of psychological disorientation rather than inflicting physical pain, were pioneered in Russia and China after the Second World War. They included humiliation, hooding, disorientation and depriving prisoners of sleep, warmth, water, food and human dignity. The KGB and Chinese secret police passed them on to the North Koreans during the Korean war, in which British prisoners of war were subjected to the new interrogation techniques.
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