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Enemy Combatant
6 November 2006Over the weekend, I went to a talk by Moazzam Beg, who was released from the notorious Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in January last year. The talk was organised by Amnesty International, so no surprise as to what it was about.
He spoke of many things, and give me a new outlook on different aspects of the “interrogation under torture” issue. He talked about how the dehumanisation was reciprocal. While the guards had to regard the detainees as less than human in order to do their work, the detainees, on their part, would have most likely thought the guards to be non-human as well. If you think of torture, you don’t think of human beings, the first word that comes to mind will most likely be “monsters”. He also talked about the paradox of locking up (and torturing) people to “protect freedom”. And the question of “whose freedom has been threatened?” comes to mind.
Towards the end of the QnA session, someone asked about the involvement of medical personnels in the torture process. I’ve always thought of people getting beaten up, or dunked in water, or psychologically/emotionally tormented… and have never considered the possibility of doctors being involved. Pardon me for the naive girl in me still thinks that all doctors abide by their code of ethics. Apparently, doctors were involved. He said he noticed that there’s a change in the treatment he would recieve and the speed at he would get them, depending on his level of cooperation at that point in time. He also shared about drugs he was given for insomnia that actually induced hallucination. When I heard that, my mind went blank. I didn’t know what to think. Would you consider those people doctors?
on November 7th, 2006 at 5:37 am
i’d like to stay naive and live in my own sweet little world.. but that is just not possible now is it.. *sigh*
miss ya babe
on November 8th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
I still think hyoscine pentothal rocks!!!