Imagine being forced to put on a heavy iron boot and having molten lead poured into it, burning your foot, and melting the skin (Perl). This is what the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay had to deal with often. Guantanamo Bay, aka GITMO, which holds terrorists, is a prison located in Cuba on the Caribbean Islands. Although Barack Obama ordered the prison to be closed, due to difficulties with moving all the prisoners, the closure of GITMO was never followed through with. Built in 1903, there have been over 775 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, while 55 people remain there as of now. Torture is exceptionally inhumane, unnecessary, and prisoners at GITMO have permanent disablement because of it.
First, as one can see, the ways that the detainees were tortured was entirely brutal. Al-Zamil, a former prisoner at Guantanamo, stated that the guards “‘Used to [go] into [his] cell and force [him] to walk out by beating [him]’” (Al-Zamil). As well as beatings, there were well known methods of torture used, like the Iron Maiden. This is a large coffin-shaped device that the prisoners would have entered, the door would close, and they would be impaled with numerous spikes that lined the inside of the coffin. A glove of iron mesh was also used to torture detainees. The glove was worn
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In Guantanamo, the guards would purposely break the prisoners bones and not put a cast on them, which gave the prisoner a permanent disability. More effects the prisoners faced from the torture would be skin rashes, low back pain, hemorrhoids, peptic ulcer disease, upper respiratory infections, gingivitis, and many more terrible diseases. GITMO medical records indicate that there was an average of 9 medical issues for each of the detainees (PLoS Medicine). No one knows what went on behind the GITMO doors, but people do know that the prisoners who came out were forever changed, physically, and