"...the evidence indicates a pattern of abuse..."

By Keith Aoki & Garrett Epps

This article appeared in the July 21, 2003 edition of The Nation.

July 2, 2003

Post-9/11 detainees at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn were held in lockdown twenty-three hours a day (an actual cell at MDC is pictured above). Detainees said that guards slammed them against walls, tripped them using their ankle chains, called them "Bin Laden Junior" and told them, "You're going to die here." Guards disrupted afternoon prayers for a "stand-up count." Guards would not let the detainees keep toilet paper or toothbrushes in their cells. The lights were kept on at all times, day and night.

Facts, photographs and quotation above picture from The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, Justice Department (April 2003).

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About Keith Aoki

Keith Aoki is a professor of law at the University of Oregon. more...

About Garrett Epps

Garrett Epps teaches constitutional law at the University of Oregon. His Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America won a 2007 Oregon Book Award. Next fall he will become a law professor at the University of Baltimore. more...
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