For 20 years, the US military has tightly controlled what the world can see or hear about Guantanamo detainees, with no images of detainees wrestling with guards and no evidence of how strikers were handcuffed and fed Mandatory giving to them. According to an investigation published by the New York Times, a small number of American troops accompanied prisoners to prisons, and photographs of detainees or their guards have since disappeared.
In 2011, WikiLeaks released secret photographs of some detainees from leaked intelligence files, and lawyers provided some of their clients’ photographs taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross. But a few months after the 9/11 attacks, few scandalous photos of other detainees have been published since they arrived at Guantanamo.
Now, using the Freedom of Information Act, the National Archives newspaper has obtained original photographs of the first detainees brought from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The photos were taken by military photographers to pass on to senior military leaders, led by Donald Rumsfeld, to show the early arrest and interrogation process.
The process of shutting down and preventing images from leaking began on the first day of the prisoners’ arrival at the camp, and at first the military prevented CNN and Miami Herald news photographers from taking pictures of the prisoners as they arrived, forcing them to leave their cameras behind. .
Instead, about a week later, the Department of Defense distributed photographs of 20 kneeling prisoners at Camp X-Ray, a temporary prison camp where prisoners of war were held during the early months of the operation. These historic photos were taken by a Marine photographer and were originally intended only for the eyes of Pentagon commanders.
The Geneva Convention calls on countries holding prisoners of war to protect them from “public curiosity”. But the released photo of the top 20 detainees also reinforced the Pentagon’s message that the young men and women who were brought to Guantanamo were all “the worst of the worst” and that they were there.
According to the report, over time, records showed that this was not true, as only 18 detainees were charged, only five of whom were prisoners convicted by a military court. Ten detainees, including those accused of the 9/11 attacks, are still on trial.
President Barack Obama promised to close the prison, but Republican opposition on Capitol Hill thwarted that effort.
Successive governments sought to reduce the number of men being held there, and all but 37 detainees were deported, some of whom were released after receiving false information that placed them on the US military and intelligence network. Newspaper.
Source: Lebanon Debate
