The photos were released in response to an ACLU lawsuit that we have
been litigating for almost 12 years. You can see a few of them in the slideshow
to the right. The photos mostly show close-ups of body parts, including
arms, legs, and heads, many with injuries. There are also wider shots
of prisoners, most of them bound or blindfolded. But what they don’t
show is a much bigger story, and the government’s selective release of
these photos could mislead the public about the true scope of what
happened.
Six months before media organizations published the notorious Abu Ghraib photos, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request
for records, including photos, relating to the abuse and torture of
prisoners in U.S. detention centers overseas. Since we sued to enforce
our request in 2004, the legal battle has focused in part on a set of
some 2,000 pictures relating to detainee maltreatment. The photos
released today are part of that set, and they are the first photos the
government has released to us in all these years of litigation. (The
court hearing our lawsuit ordered the government to release the Abu
Ghraib photos in 2004, but the photos were leaked, and posted online by
Salon, while the government was appealing the decision.)
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