Chapter 3 Conditions of Detention | 51 integrity shall be respected and ensured, and they shall be afforded minimum conditions compatible with their dignity. (Principle I) 100. International humanitarian law also contains general humane treatment guarantees. Articles 13 and 14 of the Third Geneva Convention contain general right to humane treatment provisions for prisoners of war. Further, it is well established that Common Article 3 and corresponding prohibitions of torture, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity constitute norms of customary international law. 84 1. Torture 101. There is ample information about the inhuman conditions of detention and the brutal interrogation techniques in Guantanamo, particularly during the early years. According to the testimony of a military police officer who was at Guantanamo when the first prisoners arrived at Camp X-Ray in January 2002, detainees arrived in full sensory-deprivation garb. They were the object of verbal abuse and brutal beatings by military personnel, in particular by the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF), a team of five military police officers in riot gear meant to respond when a prisoner was resistant or combative, 85 and the object of physical and sexual abuse by medical personnel. 86 Guantanamo became a “battle lab for new interrogation techniques,” as it was described in a 2009 Senate Armed Services Committee Report. 87 102. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States Government authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the context of the “war on terror.” In a set of three legal memoranda dated August 1, 2002, known as the “Torture Memos,” the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation and binding in stress positions, were lawful88 and stated that “even if an interrogation method might violate Section 84 85 86 87 88 IACHR, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.116.Doc.5 rev.1, October 22, 2002, para. 185. Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, March 28, 2003. Available at: http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamotestimonials-project/testimonies/testimonies-of-standard-operating-procedures/camp_delta_sop.pdf Testimony of Spc. Brandon Neely, The Guantánamo Testimonials Project, Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, December 4, 2008. Available at: http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/theguantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimonies-of-military-guards/testimony-of-brandon-neely Report of the Committee on Armed Services United States Senate, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in th nd U.S. Custody, 110 Congress, 2 Session, November 20, 2008. Available at: http://www.armedservices.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Detainee-Report-Final_April-22-2009.pdf Letter to Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, on whether interrogation methods used on captured al Qaeda operatives would violate the UN Torture Convention or create the basis for a prosecution under the Rome Statute, August 1, 2001. Available at: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/020801.pdf; Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A, from Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, August 1, 2002. Available at: http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/70964/00355_020801_001display.pdf; Continues… Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR