Four photographs appeared overnight Thursday November 7, 2002 on the website of Art Bell, an American radio talk show host that show beyond a shadow of a doubt the kind of inhumane treatment those captured by Americans in Afghanistan are receiving. Human rights organizations have long been claiming abuses by America and here it is in living color.
Under the headline “Anonymous mailer sends us photos taken inside a military C-130 transporting POWS”, these photographs show prisoners — handcuffed, heads covered over with black hoods, ears covered and bound with straps on the floor of a C-130 plane, under heavy and aggressive guard by the US Military.
The Pentagon has confirmed that they are legitimate photographs but Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said that they have not yet determined where the detainees were going or when the photos were taken. Officials believe it was not an authorized photo and know its release was unauthorized, he said. An investigation is now underway to find out who took and released photographs
These so-called “security measures” shown in these photographs are the first glimpse into how detainees are “transferred” to prisons in and around Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, including to the high-security prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has long been known that prisoners were heavily restrained as photos of prisoners bound and kneeling after arrival in Cuba early this year indicated however these news photographs show an even more inhuman American policy.
The Air Force and U.S. Central Command were investigating the breach, said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. “We have very very tight restrictions on any images of the detainees for security purposes and because we have no interest in potentially holding detainees up for any kind of public ridicule,” she told a Pentagon press conference
The Defense Department has limited the news media in the kind of photos it can take of prisoners from their war on “terror” on the few occasions it has actually granted access. The military itself takes photos for documentation and individual soldiers often take their own photos as souvenirs of deployments.
And what great souvenirs these will make in the annals of American human rights abuses.
Visit the link to view the pictures
