ACLU Publishes Book Documenting Accounts of Prisoner Abuse

According to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union, the civil rights group has published a book entitled, "Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond." The book was written by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, two attorneys that work for the American Civil Liberties Union. The book was published Monday by Columbia University Press.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims that the book is a detailed account of United States torture of prisoners being held abroad in places such as Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. The civil rights group claims that the source of these accounts is from the over 100,000 government documents the group has obtained under the freedom of information act and as a result of legal action. The rights group stresses that legal action is an on-going process, and claims that the Bush administration continues to withhold documents concerning the treatment of prisoners.

The group hopes that the book will do more than simply bring to light abuses occurring at foreign detention facilities. They hope it will help corroborate their claim that the abuse and torture of prisoners is not the result of the actions of a small group of sick individuals as appeared to be the case at Abu Ghraib prison. They feel the accounts will demonstrate their proposed link between the torture of prisoners and the decisions made by senior military and civilian officials.

The books authors write: ""the maltreatment of prisoners resulted in large part from decisions made by senior officials, both military and civilian. These decisions ...were reaffirmed repeatedly, even in the fact of complaints from law enforcement and military personnel that the policies were illegal and ineffective, and even after countless prisoners ...were abused, tortured, or killed in custody."

they went on to write: ""The documents show that senior officials endorsed the abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy - sometimes by tolerating it, sometimes by encouraging it, and sometimes by expressly authorizing it."

The civil rights group has long claimed that the documents they obtained document instances of prisoners being subjected to physical abuse, forced stripping of clothing, freezing cold temperatures, terrorizing from dogs, and tortuously painful stress positions. The documents also reportedly prove that the United States held prisoners as young as twelve years of age.

The group also claims that the book builds on documents detailing prisoner autopsy results that ruled their deaths homicides due to blunt force injury, suffocation and strangulation at the hands of or due to the actions of their captors.

The books authors made these comments regarding the books purpose: "It is imperative that senior officials who authorized, endorsed, or tolerated the abuse and torture of prisoners be held accountable, not only as a matter of elemental justice, but to ensure that the same crimes are not perpetrated again."