I remember one time I asked the nurse officer if he could do me a favor, Payan wrote later in a letter, just shoot me and kill me, I would appreciate, because I cannot take this anymore. As day after mind-numbing day dragged on, hunger began to rival their families as their central preoccupation. It does search and rescue, enforces fisheries laws. [11] According to Danner, the report was marked "confidential" and was not previously made public before being made available to him. This is a Coast Guard ship and they're basically exposed to the elements and basically shackled and not getting much food. likes, 174 loves, 691 comments, 1,8 . [83] In January 2022, it was reported in a Washington Post article that a former black site has been put up for sale by the Lithuanian government. John Walker Lindh, aka The American Taliban, is one of the most well-known detainees to sail on the United States secret prison fleet. He didn't tell anyone and disappeared. That report stated that no CIA officers were ever charged with crimes relating to the death of Rahman. ottawa national forest dispersed camping Call Us Now. [70] Slovak ministry spokesman Richard Fides said the country had no black sites, but its intelligence service spokesman Vladimir Simko said he would not disclose any information about possible Slovak black sites to the media. One judge refused to dismiss a detainees indictment due to outrageous government conduct, though said he was troubled by accounts of inadequate nutrition, weight loss, lack of privacy for toilet use and lack of sufficient protection from the elements., This is not to say that such treatment of detainees is condoned by this court, said the judge. Their findings were that, although human rights had generally improved in Morocco over recent years, there was also an increase in reported torture cases in the North African nation. Stafford Smith also said that up to 17 ships have been used as floating prisons, beyond the . Is there any underground prisons? Boy oh boy. According to Giovanni Fava (Socialist Party), who drafted the document, there was a "strong possibility" that the intelligence obtained under the extraordinary rendition illegal program had been passed on to EU governments who were aware of how it was obtained. Do private prisons still exist in the US? Once detained, the Coast Guard employs the fiction that the suspects are not under arrest, sometimes chains them to the deck exposed to the elements, feeds them near starvation rations and provides them buckets for toilets. Days later, was picked up by the Coast Guard. A June 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA on EU territory (with the cooperation of Council of Europe members), and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centres ("black sites") used by the CIA, some located in Europe. Right now, a suspected terrorist is sitting in the bowels of a U.S. Navy warship somewhere between the Mediterranean Sea and Washington, D.C. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the alleged leader . He also writes for online publications such as OZY and Bloody Elbow. Dear god..we are the evil empire. They describe that as a really terrible disgusting process. [4], In Chechnya, gay men have allegedly been tortured at black sites by Chechen security forces. The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities. 12/07/22: 3: U.S. Coast Guard operating secret floating prisons in Pacific Ocean: 05/31/18: 4: Conspiracy my ass!!! In the historic city of Bucharest, the CIA tortured and interrogated high-risk terrorists for years in a basement prison, under the nose of roughly two million Romanians. 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The men watched the guards discard their unfinished meals into trash bags hanging nearby and devised a plan. In 2009, unnamed former intelligence agents told ABC News that the site at Antaviliai was operational for over a year and that during that time, it held at least eight suspected terrorists within its walls. SOTS & central texas Its my guess that Bush/Cheney chose those specific ships for precisely that reason the Bataan death march and Battle of Peleliu. June 27, 2014. At Camp Eagle, a former Yugoslavian air base, the pair claimed that they were beaten and harassed by soldiers before being held and questioned by Americans in civilian clothing. [100][101], The reporting of the secret prisons was heavily criticized by members and former members of the Bush Administration. "[25], On July 20, 2007, Bush made an executive order banning torture of captives by intelligence officials. See US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships for the grisly story. The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness. [124], On February 5, 2007, Portuguese general prosecutor Cndida Almeida, head of the Central Investigation and Penal Action Department (DCIAP), announced an investigation of "torture or inhuman and cruel treatment", prompted by allegations of "illegal activities and serious human rights violations" made by MEP Ana Gomes to the attorney general, Pinto Monteiro, on January 26, 2007. Both men stated that they were violently abducted by Bosnian soldiers, who then accused them of being terrorists. US Accused of Regime of Secret Floating Prisons. A state prosecutor opened up an investigation concerning these landings which, according to Madrid, were made without official knowledge, thus being a breach of national sovereignty.[121][122][123]. And John Kelly has really been a proponent of the idea. As we've made this decision to prosecute more and more people, these delays have grown longer and longer. Some have speculated that the information allegedly leaked may have included information about the camps. If you've followed the War on Terror at all, you're almost certainly familiar with the U.S. detention facility at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba a U.S. prison that exists outside the realm of the U.S. justice system. A Coast Guard official told me people have been held for 90 days. 3. However, in 2008, USA Today quoted an unnamed Romanian official who claimed that the military portion of the airport contained three buildings which were strictly off-limits to Romanian officials but were frequented by US agents. [125], Viso magazine journalist Rui Costa Pinto also testified before the DCIAP. Now, it turns out, there's a secret U.S. detention system in the War on Drugs, too and this one is aboard U.S. Coast Guard cutters sailing in the Pacific Ocean. Whatever. We've done stories about that. Did A Doctor Discover Proof Of Past Lives, What Happens To Prisoners During A Disaster, 1 Navy Seal Vs The Spartan 300 Who Actually Would Win. Department of Defense: Art Created by Guantnamo Bay Detainees Belongs to U.S. Palestinian Prisoners Stage Hunger Strike, With General Inch in Charge, We Can Expect Further Militarization of the Prison System, PrisonCloud Provides Limited Internet Access to Belgian Prisoners, The Other Conspirator: Secret Origins of the CIA's Torture Program, China Pledges to Stop Taking Organs from Executed Prisoners, China Vows to Finance Mass Incarceration with Public Funds, Not Prison Profits. Floating Prisons by Anne McMahon. Yet the department also stated that the tapes "had no more intelligence value and were not relevant to any inquiries". 2.7m members in the teenagers community. Satellite and other planetary prisons may soon become convenient places to rocket invisibles off to as this planet becomes ever more crowded. Whatever happened to Johnny Arcentales? Investigative journalist and TED Fellow Will Potter explains. Somebody could be put on a plane and brought back to the United States. Siemitkowski was charged with facilitating the alleged CIA detention operation in Poland, where foreign suspects may have been tortured in the context of the War on Terror. In 2015, The Intercept revealed aerial shots of Camp Lemonnier showing how the base, which is a crucial takeoff point for Reaper and Predator drones, has been steadily expanding. Malinowski's comments prompted quick denials by both Polish and Romanian government officials as well as sparking the concern of the International Committee of the Red Cross ("ICRC"), who called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States. In 2008, The Guardian reported that human rights organization Reprieve, which claimed that the US has admitted to holding at least 26,000 people in secret prisons, had discovered that the US was operating a fleet of "floating prisons" that span the globe. This instruction was opened following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by the Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH) NGO ("Human Rights League") and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) NGO on charges of "arbitrary detention", "crime of torture" and "non-respect of the rights of war prisoners". And the idea that we need to push our borders outward farther and farther away from our actual borders in order to defend the homeland, that's led to this effort to interdict drugs far, far away from the United States in places where drug smugglers actually really have very little idea where their drugs are headed. The property was purchased in 2004 by Elite LLC, a company registered in Washington, DC. That same report cited Spain, Turkey, Germany, and Cyprus as staging posts and the UK, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece as stop-off points for detainees being flown to black sites such as Camp Eagle. Operated Secret Dark Prison in Kabul (Human Rights Watch, 19-12-2005), "Sexual abuse rife at UAE-run jails in Yemen, prisoners claim", "Disappearances and torture in southern Yemen detention facilities must be investigated as war crimes", "Inside numerous secret prisons in Yemen, the UAE tortures and the U.S. interrogates detainees: Re", "HRW: UAE backs torture and disappearances in Yemen", "Amnesty urges probe into report of UAE torture in Yemen", "UAE runs 'horrific network of torture' in secret Yemen prisons: report", "NGO calls for closing UAE's 'secret prisons' in Yemen", "The UAE and Saudi Arabia Supervise the Arrest and Torture of Dozens of Yemenis", "The #UAE an #SaudiArabia supervise the arrest and torture of dozens of Yemenis", "Authorities in Mukalla must free those being arbitrarily detained in Al Munawara Central Prison", "Is Europe being used to hold CIA detainees? In 2010, the Associated Press reported that several US officials had confirmed that the facility was operated by Moroccans but was financed by the CIA. Perhaps this is why the U.S. is all fussed about the race to reign in outer space. The Ashland houses 500 US Marines onboard. US Government Caught Operating Floating Black Site Prisons, Torturing He said that he had heard from three U.S. intelligence sources that Diego Garcia was used as "a transit site where people were temporarily housed, let us say, and interrogated from time to time" and that "What I heard was more along the lines of using it as a transit location when perhaps other places were full or other places were deemed too dangerous or insecure, or unavailable at the moment". Above all else, we respect everyone's opinions and ALL An estimated 50 prisons have been used to hold detainees in 28 countries, in addition to at least 25 more prisons in Afghanistan and 20 in Iraq. He's called drug smuggling in Central America an existential threat to the United States. 's secret interrogation program", "Senate Intelligence Panel Seeks CIA Nominee's Withdrawal", "Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations", "Congress Seeks Justice Dept. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. FACIAL. Thailand denies the existence of any black sites in its territory, despite multiple reports describing the mysterious Detention Site Green and hinting that it may be located just outside of Bangkok or somewhere in the northern province of Udon Thani. In April 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta announced that the "CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites", in a letter to staff and that "[r]emaining sites would be decommissioned". And so when I talked to Arcentales, for example, about the sea, he said to me "the ocean used to be a place that for me represented freedom. Jhonny Arcentales, a fisherman who was caught smuggling cocaine, lost 20 pounds during almost 70 days of floating confinement, while Jair Guevara Payan lost 50. Coast Guard intercepts cocaine-filled submarine-like vessel - USA Today The US Navy has anchored one of its secret prisons in Haitian waters The report cites airports in Timioara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, as "detainee transfer/drop-off point[s]". The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. On October 9, 2007, the United States Supreme Court declined without comment to hear an appeal of El-Masri's civil lawsuit against the United States (El-Masri v. Tenet), letting stand an earlier verdict by a federal district court judge, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He is a fisherman from a coastal town in Ecuador and was having a particularly, economically, rough year and made a decision to take a job smuggling cocaine off of the coast of Ecuador. "By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. secret floating prisons - Unitedenergygroupllc.com [69], Several European countries (particularly the former Soviet satellites and republics) have been accused of and have denied hosting black sites: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The community he comes from on the central coast of Ecuador, many men have left on these smuggling trips. secret floating prisons. Secret Floating Prisons - Explained - VideoLink [127], Approximately 150 CIA flights have been identified as having flown through Portugal. Torture was par for the course at the Salt Pit, and prisoners were often subjected to inhumane punishments and conditions, including mock executions. According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as floating prisons since 2001. [31][32][33] Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison on September 23, 2010, following a hearing in which she testified.[34]. In an effort to staunch the flow of cocaine and other hard drugs from South America to Central America and points north, Coast Guard cutters have been deployed farther and farther from the shore in the Pacific Ocean. [126] She expressed satisfaction with the opening of the investigation, but emphasized that she had always said a parliamentary inquiry would also be necessary. A report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, entitled "Enduring Freedom - Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan", states that the CIA has operated in Afghanistan since September 2001;[97] maintaining a large facility in the Ariana Chowk neighborhood of Kabul and a detention and interrogation facility at the Bagram airbase. In 2008, The Guardian reported that human rights organization Reprieve, which claimed that the US has admitted to holding at least 26,000 people in secret prisons, had discovered that the US was operating a fleet of floating prisons that span the globe. US Gov't Caught Operating Floating Black Site Prisons, Torturing People Shop Full Width; Shop With Sidebar; . Yes, the Coast Guard is actively hiding its prisoners so it can essentially keep them at sea indefinitely. Because it's honestly a show about grown men, running a pawn shop, trying to do all they can to get both interesting items, and items that can make them a. America's Floating Prisons - The Atlantic Those are stories that hadn't been told before. [23] The Washington Post posited that McCarthy "had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan", and became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in a meeting with US Senate staff in June 2005. This is a practice of detention that until now hasn't really been known. U.S. Coast Guard operating secret floating prisons in Pacific Ocean As weve made this decision to prosecute more and more people, these delays have grown longer and longer.. The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious or significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systematic and individual management failures. Many Americans I speak with don't believe this could . [21], On April 21, 2006, Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was fired for allegedly leaking classified information to a Washington Post reporter, Dana Priest, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her revelations concerning the CIA's black sites. In an effort to keep you from having access to cocaine, the Coast Guard is kidnapping people trying to earn a living, shackling them to the deck of a boat in the elements, barely feeding them, forcing them to defecate in buckets and sleep in their own feces, essentially torturing them for months, until they get back to the US. 5 Jun. This process is called "extraordinary rendition". The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by . According to an article by Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian, the US has a series of floating prisons in which people are held and questioned in a law-free regime. Romania claims that Mihail Kogalniceanu Airport is only used as a transfer point for CIA prisoners and not for actual detainment or interrogations. What are the 5 types of prisons in the US? Internal Inquiry Troubling, Lawmakers Say", "CIA Head Defends Interrogation Practices", "CIA says it made and destroyed interrogation tapes", "Democrats Want Probe of Tape Destruction", "Alleged secret detentions in Council of Europe member states", "El Gobierno canario pide explicaciones sobre vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife", "La Fiscala de Canarias investigar las escalas de vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife y Gran Canaria", "Un supuesto avin de la CIA aterriza en la base portuguesa de Azores", "La France enqute sur les avions de la CIA", "Portugal: Renditions: Judicial investigation into CIA flights begins", Portugal/CIA.- La Fiscala General abre una investigacin sobre los supuestos vuelos ilegales de la CIA en Portugal, "Voos Secretos CIA: Nos Bastidores da Vergonha - Vol I", "Portugal: Evidence of illegal CIA rendition flights surfacing", "Poland ex-spy boss 'charged over alleged CIA secret prison', "Polish Ex-Official Charged With Aiding the C.I.A. The question about the legality of the U.S. Coast Guard's detention practices has not been raised, in an international context, in criminal courts. The U.S. government does not provide information about the operation of black sites, and for a period of time did not provide information about the existence of black sites. your username. The practices of the Coast Guard would be unlikely to satisfy international human rights requirements either, said Oxford maritime-law scholar Efthymios Papastavridis. The Coast Guard was conscripted as the agency empowered to seek out suspected smugglers and bring them to American courts, the Times reports. Ironic if one of the prison/torture ships was the Bataan; given that it was so-named as a result of our outrage over mistreatment of our POWs by the Japanese. On our Doge's Palace "Prisons and Tyranny" tour, you'll discover a darker side of Venice. The Coast Guard has a broad mission. The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. Officially, it is home to the Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa, a US combat unit that was mobilized during Operation Enduring Freedom, aka The War on Terror. This area is a safe area, and does not have a level requirement to access. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Before the mid-1980s, however, it was restricted to U.S. territorial waters. [149][151], On July 24, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it cooperated with the US, allowing the CIA to hold and torture Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on its territory in 20022003. Follow him @timothybissell. On March 15, 2009, Mark Danner provided a report in the New York Review of Books (with an abridged version in The New York Times) describing and commenting on the contents of the ICRC report. secret floating prisons And yet it goes on. [125], Gomes was highly critical of the Portuguese government's reluctance to comply with the European Parliament Commission investigation into the CIA flights, leading to tensions with Foreign Minister Lus Amado, a member of her party. Since 2001, the US has held approximately 80,000 detainees, 26,000 of which remain in secret prisons. In May 2007, Masri was committed to a psychiatric institution after he was arrested in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm on suspicion of arson. Where is the world's largest floating prison? - Corrections1 More evidence supporting the airports role in CIA detentions arose in 2010 when Der Spiegel reported that the Swiss intelligence agencys Onyx satellite surveillance system had intercepted a fax between an Egyptian foreign minister and his ambassador in London. Just give them a story premise and Im sure theyd be happy to run with it. "Tales from Torture's Dark World" by Mark Danner, United States of America / Yemen: Secret Detention in CIA "Black Sites", AI Index: AMR 51/177/2005, Details about "CIA" flights requested to Portuguese government by MEP. secret floating prisons The army rejected suspicions that the station had been used as a black site. [142][143][144] Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA would only use interrogation techniques authorized in the US Army interrogation manual, and that any individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer them to the custody of authorities in their home countries, or the custody of another US agency. F2 :: U.S. Coast Guard operating secret floating prisons in Pacific Ocean document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. ). [84], After the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, Alexander Kwasniewski, admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site in Poland, but that activities were to be carried out in accordance to Polish law. Competitive Shopping. Then they built the Preston Castle which is now known as California youth Authority P. The Salt Pit is a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan. Answer (1 of 3): They did back in the Victorian era like when San Quentin was a ship anchored in the harbor before the prison was built.. the prisoners built the prison and started with the C.O's Barricks first. Secret Floating Prisons - Explained | We all know prisoners are kept The defense for Aafia Siddiqui, who was tried in New York City, alleged that she was held and tortured in a secret US facility at Bagram for several years. Reprieves research pointed to at least 17 US warships being used as secret CIA black sites. Yes exactly right, and we are going to have a hell of a time righting things. [145], On December 9, 2014 United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a 525-page portion that consisted of key findings and an executive summary of the report called Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. The involvement of Leszek Miller, Poland's Prime Minister from 2001 to 2004, is also considered possible. The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. 4. [114] Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees expressed concern about the inquiry, saying that it could undermine the inspector general's role as independent watchdog. 1,3 . According to the leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, soon after Siemitkowski was charged by the prosecutors in Warsaw, the case was transferred and is now expected to be handled by a different prosecutorial team in Cracow. These are 10 Secret Prisons The Government Are HidingClick to Subscribe.. http://bit.ly/WTVC4xFAQ's:What editing software do we use? 1,3 . Human rights group alleges U.S. prison ships - Wikinews Iliescu further stated that had he known of the intended use of the site, he would certainly not have approved the request. duh Time began to warp for them.