Two British men who were detained at the US prison
camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, allege they were tortured and forced to listen
to Eminem at deafening levels.
Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal described their abuse
in an open letter to George Bush released by the New York-based Center for Constitutional
Rights, which is providing legal counsel for the men.
The men say they were forced to squat with their
hands chained between their legs for hours, blinded with strobe lights and were
forced to listen to loud rap music, particularly Eminem, in an attempt to extract
information from the prisoners.
As early as last year, a
Lebanese man who was in Iraq on a pilgrimage to Islamic
holy sites and was mistakenly detained by U.S. troops, made the same accusations.
"They didn’t torture us physically, but
they did psychologically by raising the volume of rap music all day until it
became unbearable and by withholding food," Mohammed Jaber said in December
of 2003.”
These allegations come in the face of similar
accusations in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Pictures of naked prisoners in compromising
positions have prompted outcries from humanitarian organizations worldwide.
The men also claim Major General Geoffrey Miller,
who was in charge of the Guantanamo operation from November of 2002 until this
year, created new forms of torture, including "short-shackling," which
shackled a prisoner to a hook in the floor to limit movement.
Miller is now in charge of the prisons in Iraq,
where he has promised to reform the system.
Around 600 prisoners are still being held in
Guantanamo, on suspicion of having ties to the ousted Taliban regime or the
al-Qaida network.
None have been charged with crimes and have not
been allowed to see lawyers. Some have been held in the prison for over two
years.
