The Pentagon is releasing almost 200 photographs of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, taken mostly between 2004 and 2006, involving 56 cases of alleged abuse by US forces.
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To underscore the risk, the Defense Department pointed to public and at times violent demonstrations in the region that followed reports of Quran burnings, blasphemous films and the 2012 release of a video that purportedly showed Americans soldiers urinating on dead enemy combatants.
“It’s most likely the case that these are the most innocuous of the photos, and if that’s true, it’s a shadow of meaningful transparency”, said Alex Abdo, an ACLU attorney who has worked on the photo litigation since 2005.
Some of the photos are close-ups of parts of bodies that appear to show injuries such as bruising, while others show full-body images of detainees in various forms of detention by the us military.
The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU in 2003, demanding that the US government disclose nearly 2,000 photos documenting Bush-era prisoners abuse.
One of 198 photographs of detainees being abused by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The disclosure of these photos is long overdue, but more important than the disclosure is the fact that hundreds of photographs are still being withheld”, said ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer.
In a statement, a Defense Department spokesman said, “These photos come from independent criminal investigations into allegations of misconduct by USA personnel”.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the remaining pictures show mock executions being staged by USA troops, a farmer being shot in the head while his hands were bound, and detainees forced to look at lingerie-clad women in violation of their religious beliefs. It said 14 of those allegations were substantiated and led to disciplinary action against 65 US service members, including life imprisonment.
It is not yet clear if any of the photographs originate from Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where United States soldiers were implicated in the torture and sexual humiliation of local prisoners in 2004.
In 2009, the Obama administration promised to release the photos, but Congress passed a law that allowed them to remain classified if the Defense secretary certified their release would jeopardize national security.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of NY in March 2014 ordered the Pentagon to release the photos.
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The Obama administration’s lawyers justify withholding the photos with the argument that disclosing misconduct of military and government agents may incite people to attack USA citizens and interests.
