After September 11, 2001, U.S. officials authorized the cruel treatment and torture of prisoners held in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and the CIA's secret prisons overseas.

This database documents the U.S. government's official experiment with torture. At present, the database contains well over 100,000 pages of government documents obtained primarily through Freedom of Information Act litigation and requests filed by the ACLU, and through litigation of Salim v. Mitchell, a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the survivors and the family of a dead victim of the CIA torture program. To learn more about the database, please read the About and Search Help pages. If you're a developer, you can also access this data through our API.

Search Result (85)

Sworn statement of a detainee. States that following his capture, he was held for two and a half days in a box too small for him to stand. States, "I couldn't sleep in two days. They were playing very loud Western music, like rock music." States ...
Statement of detainee captured by Special Forces and taken to a place that he believed belonged to the CIA. States that he was held in a box "one meter long and one meter high," given no food for three days, and prevented from sleeping by "loud ...
Sworn statement by a Iraqi national who became a detainee at Abu Ghraib with member of his family. He claims that his brother was with the Saddam regime and when he went to visit his sister in Iraq he was taken in to custody as a detainee and ...
Report on an informal investigation conducted by Brigadier General Richard P. Formica into specific allegations of detainee abuse within CJSOTF-AP [Combined Joint Special Operating Task Force – Arabian Peninsula] and 5th SF [Special Forces] Group ...
Detainee alleges that after being taken in to custody on June 21, 2004 he was placed in a small cell beaten by soldiers while his hands were, handcuffed behind his back, not glowed to use the restroom, forced to urinate and forced to defecate on ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Investigative File (CID), Photograph
Physical assault, General, Cramped confinement, Dietary manipulation, Other Humiliation

A detainee claims to have been assaulted while in custody at Camp Al Baghdadi. The detainee had his injuries substantiated and the conclusion of the report was that the detainee was abused. The report found that the detainee was handcuffed and ...

Sept. 20, 2005
Investigative File (CID)
General, Stress positions, Dietary manipulation, Physical assault
This report by a DAIG Team interviewed 24 individuals and conducted 4 sensing sessions consisting of 23 Soldiers. All Soldiers interviewed and sensed were given surveys to assess factors associated with combat stress. The inspection took place ...

General Bantz J. Craddock, Commander United States Southern Command, ordered an AR 15-6 investigation into alleged instances of abuse at Guantanamo. He appointed Brigadier General John T. Furlow and Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt to ...

Medical evaluation for 21 year-old male detainee. Detainee claims to have his eyes covered, hands cuffed, no food or water for three (3) days, kicked, punched and had his feet stepped on at the Dhyla Al Mokhadia Base, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. ...
Apr. 18, 2005
Medical (Physical (non-death))
Physical assault, General, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling