One year after Myanmar’s Coup, bullet casings line blood-stained pavements, and the sounds of gunfire, explosions and dampened cries of protest fill the air. In an unprecedented period of civil war, violence in Myanmar has escalated, with intensifying conflict between the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s armed forces) and its opposition armed civilian groups. The conflict has resulted […]
Tag: Torture
Understanding US Prisons as State-Sanctioned, Discriminatory Torture
Prisoners shiver in the dark. They are wearing short-sleeves— not enough to cover their bare skin from the bite of two-degree freezing temperatures. They have endured without water, food, heat, electricity or sanitation for over a week. In desperation, they bang on the windows of their cells, hoping someone, anyone, hears them. Finally, they are […]
Our Unbridled ‘Protector’: The U.S. Intelligence Community
This November, the Central Intelligence Agency was forced to release a 90 page document. They did so begrudgingly, because in this document were the detailed reports of decades of experimentation on prisoners with the purpose of creating a “truth serum.” In the report, they discussed trapping prisoners in coffin-like boxes, repeatedly waterboarding prisoners, and kindly, […]