Secret prisons - there may be an entire network of "black sites"

how many and how long has it been going on...?

On Monday, Amnesty International released a report providing detailed information on three Yemeni nationals who were illegally held in secret detention centres or "black sites" run by the United States.

Muhammad al-Assad, Salah Ali and Muhammad Bashmilah were arrested in Yemen in 2003 and handed over to U.S. custody, at which point they "disappeared" for a year and a half until resurfacing in Yemeni custody this past May.

Through interviews with the three men after they were released, Amnesty International uncovered evidence that during the interim, they had been held in complete isolation in a series of U.S.-run secret detention centres.

While there have been widespread reports recently that the United States is holding two to three dozen "high-value" detainees at secret CIA-run facilities outside the country, the cases of the three "disappeared" Yemenis documented in the new Amnesty International report "suggest that the network of clandestine interrogation centres is not reserved solely for high-value detainees, but may be larger, more comprehensive and better organised than previously suspected," the report maintains.

yes, and the icrc must be allowed access which, of course, would mean the sites wouldn't be secret any more...

(from the introduction to the report...)

Imagine that one minute you are eating dinner with your family and the next you are hooded, handcuffed, and dragged away. Your family is not told where you were taken. After your initial interrogation, you are taken to a plane: it takes off, but no one tells you where it’s going and when it lands you don’t even know what country you’re in.

You are put in a cell, completely isolated, with no windows and only a bucket for a toilet. Artificial lights are on all the time and a constant low-level hum comes out of the loudspeakers. You cannot sleep and feel very anxious. The guards, dressed completely in black, communicate only with hand gestures. Interrogators insult you about the things most sacred to you and make you stand motionless for long periods of time. You feel like you are going mad and just want this to stop. And to make matters worse, you still haven’t been told why you are there, nor are you allowed to speak to a lawyer or your family. No one knows where you are.

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