Torture and Gendered violence in Abu Ghraib INTRODUCTION As the British journalist Fisk (2010) mentioned in " Robert Fisk: The truth about 'honour' killings”, most female prisoners held at Abu Ghraib were raped, and some of them even got killed after returning home because their families felt shamed. On the other hand, Zurbriggen (2008) points out that male prisoners in Abu Ghraib also suffered from sexualized torture and abuse from female American soldiers. In "The end of naive feminism [Abu Ghraib]", Barbara Ehrenreich (2004), an American author, claims that it is hard to realize feminism in the male-dominated military hierarchy. In " Gender trouble at Abu Ghraib?" Kaufman-Osborn (2005) disagrees with Enrenreich (2004) who focuses more on the feminist request of gender equality and presents the evidence of male Iraq prisoners getting abused by female soldiers. In " 'Torture Chambers and Rape Rooms’: What Abu Ghraib Can Tell Us about the American Carceral System", Whitmer (2006) agrees with both Ehrenreich (2004) and Kaufman-Osborn (2005), and states all kinds of gendered violence occurred in Abu Ghraib and claims that there is no difference between gendered violence in U.S and that in Iraq.…
Abu Ghraib Torture and Prison Abuse and The Bataan Death March are two comparative events in US history. The Abu Ghraib Torture and Prison Abuse was a series of human rights violations against prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, which began in March of 2003. The Bataan Death March was the relocation by foot of American Prisoners from the Bataan Peninsula to Camp O, Donnel a prisoner camp of the Japanese during World War 2. While both Abu Ghraib and The Bataan Death March are a result of…
The Iraqi prison twenty miles away from Baghdad Abu Ghraib is now infamous for maltreatment. It is unknown how many people the prison held. The vast majority of prisoners were civilians picked up by the military at traffic stops. They were undocumented in the prison or placed under an ambiguous category of "common criminals" or those suspected of "crimes against the coalition". Most were not meant to be in Abu Ghraib, but since many prisoners were undocumented, this went overlooked as did the…
called Camp Sumter and was highly known for its horrible conditions and high death rate. In History.com’s article “Andersonville” it says, “In all, approximately 13,000 Union prisoners perished at Andersonville, and following the war its commander, Captain Henry Wirz (1823-65), was tried, convicted and executed for war crimes.” This camp was highly feared and the conditions in which the prisoners were held were definitely horrible to say the least. It was not a place you wanted to be at all. …
people can easily become evil and sadistic. It is all down to the environment and situation they are in. I personally believe that the findings have shown that humans are malleable, in the sense that in the right situation we can easily switch from being a sadistic guard making people who honestly have not done anything wrong, clean the toilets with their bare hands, strip them of their bedding and even their clothes. We can be turn as sadistic as easily as we can turn into submissive slaves…
As Marianne Szegedy-Maszak states in “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism,” everyone has the potential to be a torturer (Szegedy-Maszak 76). According to Szegedy-Maszak, the “unconscionable acts” committed at Abu Ghraib were likely caused by “the anxiety and helplessness” of their living conditions in Iraq (76). In attempt to investigate the motives behind sadistic acts in situations similar to the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal, Philip G. Zimbardo, author of “The Stanford Prison…
The origin of torture dates back to 530 A.D. when the Romans used interrogated slaves and lower-class citizens. Today, there are international and domestic laws against the use of torture during interrogations. The United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person…
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, author of "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," states that everyone is subjected to be a possible torturer (Szegedy-Maszak 76). Szegedy-Maszak asserts, the "unconscionable acts" committed by the Abu Ghraib were likely caused by "the anxiety and helplessness" of their horrific living conditions (Szegedy-Maszak 76). Philip G. Zimbardo, author of "The Stanford Prison Experiment," attempts to clarify the reasoning and motivation behind the sadistic acts in…
Sergeant Samuel, both exposed of the torture taking place in the Abu Ghraib prison. Sergeant Joseph Darby provided the pictures of the abuse that led to an investigation and resulted in dishonorable discharge and reprimands for 11 of the soldiers. Whereas, Sergeant Samuel Provance publicly revealed the role of the interrogators in the abuse and the tactics used to cover up the Abu Ghraib abuse. Similarly, Edward Snowden, exposed the NSA’s warrants domestic wiretapping program. It is important to…
One of those examples was the conversations the prisoners had with each other. The article states that “their concerns were almost exclusively riveted to prison topics. Their monitored conversations revealed that only 10 percent of the time was devoted to “outside” topics, while 90 percent of the time they discussed escape plans, the awful food, grievances or ingratiation tactics to use with specific guards in order to get a cigarette, permission to go to the toilet, or some other favor. Their…