Officials at the highest levels of the US defense and justice departments approved interrogation techniques such as sleep disruption and temperature extremes for detainees at its base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
The newspaper cited defense officials, some of whom had helped draw up the guidelines.
"We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the pressure," one lawyer and drafter of the guidelines told the newspaper on the condition of anonymity. "We wanted a little more freedom than in a US prison, but not torture."
The techniques were designed to put stress on detainees and disorient them. Stripping detainees was permitted if they were alone in their cells, officials told the Post. Some of the other 20 techniques included "sensory assault," such as subjecting the detainees to loud music and bright lights, or making them stand for hours at a time, but physical contact was not permitted, the officials told the Post.
They said a similar policy was in force for detainees in Iraq believed to have information on terrorist or insurgency operations, but whether those guidelines were in force at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Bagdad, where US soldiers had abused Iraqi prisoners, was not known.
The abuse at Abu Ghraib, which included sexual humiliation, recently came to light with the release of photographs taken by US soldiers there, prompting investigations to be launched over treatment of detainees there and other similar US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
The Post said that Guantanamo interrogators must win the approval of senior officials at the Pentagon, and sometimes even Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to use such techniques by justifying it as "militarily necessary," and detainees subjected to such treatment must be watched by medical personnel.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
AFTERMATH: The Taipei City Government said it received 39 minor incident reports including gas leaks, water leaks and outages, and a damaged traffic signal A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, producing only two major aftershocks as of yesterday noon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The limited aftershocks contrast with last year’s major earthquake in Hualien County, as Saturday’s earthquake occurred at a greater depth in a subduction zone. Saturday’s earthquake struck at 11:05pm, with its hypocenter about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km. Shaking was felt in 17 administrative regions north of Tainan and in eastern Taiwan, reaching intensity level 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier seismic scale, the CWA said. In Hualien, the
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