Rectal feeding is rape – but don’t expect the CIA to admit it
Of all the revelations made about the “enhanced interrogation methods” used by the CIA on detainees in the aftermath of 9/11, the use of waterboarding and rectal feeding have garnered the most attention. In the case of the latter in particular, this was the first time many people had even heard of such a thing.
Initially used in response to prisoner hunger strikes, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found this allegedly “necessary” and “legitimate” medical practice – also referred to as a “nutrient enema” – was also used by the CIA as a form of torture and control.
According to the committee report “at least five CIA detainees were subjected to "rectal rehydration” or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity". The report identifies a chief of Interrogations referring to medically unnecessary rectal feeding and hydration as illustrative of the interrogator’s “total control over the detainee”.
Alongside the psychological effects of this torture, physical injuries were sustained by at least one detainee as a result of rectal feeding. The detainee was “diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse”.
Some of the report’s findings are reminiscent of the US-led torture, humiliation and abuse that went on at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. There, prisoners were stripped naked, forced into submissive and degrading positions – such as bending over while pulling their buttocks apart – and threatened with anal rape. In one case, a prisoner had what appeared to be a broom handle inserted into his rectum.
Both the Abu Ghraib revelations and those of the Senate committee demonstrate that the threat, simulation of, or actual penetration of male prisoners has been central to the torture and interrogation practices of the American military and intelligence services.
http://theconversation.com/rectal-feeding-is-rape-but-dont-expect-the-cia-to-admit-it-35437
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