The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA, the 'Davis Group') was a university human rights center located at the University of California, Davis. The CSHRA was housed within UC Davis' Hemispheric Institute on the Americas. Founded in 2005 and in operation until at least 2013, its website states that it was an "academic initiative for the comprehensive study of human rights across the American continent". The CSHRA operated two main programs, The Guantánamo Testimonials Project, which collected from public sources the testimonials of those involved in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, [1] ranging from prisoners to guards, FBI agents, military psychologists, etc., and the Neurobiology of Psychological Torture project, which investigated the neurobiology of psychological torture, including at Guantanamo Bay. [2]
The CSHRA, sometimes referred to as the Davis Group, was notable for its research on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, including breaking the story that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was holding 12 children, four more than the US was stating at the time, [3] and then 15 children, three more than the US was claiming at the time. The CSHRA repeatedly called for a public investigation into post-9/11 U.S. detention policies and practices. [4] The CSHRA also compiled a book, The Trauma of Psychological Torture, published by Praeger Publishers. [5]
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army major general who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison, Camp Cropper, and Camp Bucca. He is noted for having trained soldiers in using torture, or "enhanced interrogation techniques" in US euphemism, and for carrying out the "First Special Interrogation Plan," signed by the Secretary of Defense, against a Guantanamo detainee.
Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi is a Saudi Arabian citizen. He is alleged to have acted as a key financial facilitator for the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Camp Iguana is a small compound in the detention camp complex on the US Naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Camp Iguana originally held three child detainees, who camp spokesmen then claimed were the only detainees under age 16. It was closed in the winter of 2004 when the three were sent back to their native countries.
Colonel Michael Bumgarner has been a career officer in the military police of the United States Army. He is most noted for having been the commander of the Joint Detention Group, the guard force component of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, from April 2005 through June 2006, at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. During this period there was a widespread hunger strike in 2005, which he helped end. On June 10, 2006, three detainees were found dead, in what the United States Department of Defense announced as suicides. Bumgarner had other assignments after Guantanamo and retired from the military in 2010.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context, the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers, called black sites, operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists, investigations, and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there, and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong, and had nothing to hide.
Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane is an Algerian citizen, and former resident of Canada, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO, GITMO, or just Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in January 2002 by U.S. President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects and "illegal enemy combatants" during the Global War on Terrorism following the attacks of September 11, 2001. As of August 2024, at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation, of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere, 9 died in custody, and 30 remain; only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
Muhammad Ali Abdallah Muhammad Bwazir is a citizen of Yemen, once held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Bwazir's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 440. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1980, in Hawra', Yemen.
Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan refugee born in 1985 in Miranshah, Pakistan, was accused of attempted murder before a Guantanamo military commission on charges that he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy on December 17, 2002. Jawad's family says that he was 12 years old at the time of his detention in 2002. The United States Department of Defense maintains that a bone scan showed he was about 17 when taken into custody.
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) had stopped reporting Guantanamo suicide attempts in 2002. In mid-2002 the DoD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, and enumerated them under other acts of "self-injurious behavior".
Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj, also known as Riyadh the Facilitator, is a Yemeni alleged Al-Qaeda associate who is currently being held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He is accused of being a "senior al-Qaida facilitator who swore an oath of allegiance to and personally recruited bodyguards for Osama Bin Laden".
White torture, often referred to as white room torture, is a type of psychological torture technique aimed at complete sensory deprivation and isolation. A prisoner is held in a cell, devoid of any color besides white, that is designed to deprive them of all senses and identity.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international human rights, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. On 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
The Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strikes were a series of prisoner protests at the U.S. detention camp Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The first hunger strikes began in 2002 when the camp first opened, but the secrecy of the camp's operations prevented news of those strikes from reaching the public. The first widely reported hunger strikes occurred in 2005.
Separate facilities exist to provide for Guantanamo detainees' medical care.
Following the September 11 attacks of 2001 and subsequent War on Terror, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established a "Detention and Interrogation Program" that included a network of clandestine extrajudicial detention centers, officially known as "black sites", to detain, interrogate, and often torture suspected enemy combatants, usually with the acquiescence, if not direct collaboration, of the host government.
Biderman's Chart of Coercion, also called Biderman's Principles, is a table developed by sociologist Albert Biderman in 1957 to illustrate the methods of Chinese and Korean torture on American prisoners of war from the Korean War. The chart lists eight chronological general methods of torture that will psychologically break an individual.
According to UN experts, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba is a site of "unparalleled notoriety" and has been condemned as a site of "unrelenting human rights violations." The facility has been holding prisoners for over 20 years. A document released by the Amnesty International reported ongoing and historic human rights violations at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.