How bad has Omar’s treatment really been? |
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Omar has suffered abuse at the hands of US authorities that amounts at the very least to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and arguably to torture. At Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, interrogators withheld pain medication needed to treat Omar's severe gunshot wounds. He was forced into stress positions for hours at a time, and was interrogated with a bag over his head in a room with barking dogs. His mistreatment continued at Guantanamo Bay. He was repeatedly placed in stress positions, physically abused, deprived of sleep for weeks, and threatened with torture and rape. In one particularly shocking instance, Omar was used by military police as a ‘human mop’ to clean up his own urine after he had been left in a stress position for hours. After this incident Omar was denied a change of clothes for two days. As early as 2004, an independent US government authorized investigation concluded that severe prisoner abuse amounting to inhumane and degrading treatment and possibly torture had occurred at Guantanamo. The findings of this report have been echoed by various civil society organizations, the FBI, International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Committee Against Torture. In June 2008, after reviewing documents the US had shared with Canada, Justice Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada concluded that Omar’s treatment violated the UN Convention Against Torture.
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