Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

“We were locked to the
floor like animals. You
could walk around but
your legs were still
chained.”
time, they both said, they were not handcuffed to a round
steel ring connected to a wall but to a long chain that was
connected to the floor of their cell. 201
“We were locked to the floor like animals. You
could walk around but your legs were still
chained.” 202
Sharif said he had a toilet and a basin as well as a mattress in his cell. 203 He also said
there was a very loud noise, like the sound of a turbine, going on all the time. “When the
door to your cell opened, you could hear it very loudly but if your door was kept closed, you
couldn’t hear it as well,” Sharif said. “It kept us from being able to speak to each other.” 204
Loud music was also played at times, but it was not continuous like it was in the other
location, Sharif said.
In this location, both Shoroeiya and Sharif said there was not the same kind of physical
abuse there was in the other location. It was more just isolation, restraint, use of music
and noise, and continuous interrogation. Sharif told Human Rights Watch,
The whole period of my detention they were interrogating me. I can’t remember
a time I spent more than two days without interrogation. They
brought me photos of people from all over the world, photographed in other
countries, and they would ask, “Do you know this guy, do you recognize
him?” When I would say no, they were astonished. They would say: “How
come you don’t know this guy? He was in Pakistan, how come you don’t
know him?” 205
201 Human Rights Watch interviews with Sharif, March 14, 2012; and Shoroeiya, March 18, 2012. Bashmilah also said he was
chained by the ankle to his cell floor during the first three to four weeks at the new facility. Bashmilah Declaration, para. 99.
202 Human Rights Watch interview with Sharif, March 14, 2012.
203 Ibid. Shoroeiya did not specify whether he had the same.
204 Ibid. Jabour offered a similar description: “Besides the music, there was also a constant, low-level, white noise.… It
sounded like a generator.” Human Rights Watch, Ghost Prisoner, p 16.
205 Human Rights Watch interview with Sharif, March 14.
55 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012