Six Algerians--all with Bosnian citizenship--are suing the US under the Freedom of Information Act to release medical records they say would prove they have been tortured while imprisoned at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.
A Pentagon spokesman said that Al Qa'ida trains its members to make false allegations of abuse. But in light of documented cases of abuse and treatment "tantamount to torture," the Bosnian prisoners want to prove to the world that have in fact been tortured.
Lawyers say that one of the six men was beaten so badly that he suffered facial paralysis. According to the lawsuit, US soldiers forced a garden hose pumping water at full blast into the mouth of Mustafa Aid Idir, a computer technician, until he thought he would die from suffocation. Lawyers claim his finger and thumb were broken, and his head was driven into the ground with a force that caused facial paralysis. He is also said to have suffered a stroke.
“His eyes didn’t blink, he couldn’t eat, food was leaking from his mouth,” his attorney, Melissa Hoffer, told reporters.
Since the Patriot Act, I've heard many right-wingers defend the curtailing of American civil rights in the name of "security." "If you've got nothing to hide, it's no big deal, right?"
Release the records, Donald Rumsfeld. If there's nothing to hide, there's no problem, right?
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