The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
01 December 2004
The Red Cross has accused President George Bush's administration of overseeing the intentional physical and psychological torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. It also accused doctors and medics of liaising with interrogators in what was a "flagrant violation of medical ethics".
In an extraordinary confidential report to the US authorities, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the military guards and interrogators at the prison deliberately used psychological and physical coercion that was "tantamount to torture". It said the treatment it had witnessed had been increasingly "refined and repressive".
The report by the Red Cross - the only independent organisation permitted to visit the prisoners - was written after a visit by its inspection team in June. It said it discovered a system designed to break the will of the 550 prisoners - four of them British citizens - through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes
use of forced positions".
It added: "The construction of such a system whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=588470
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