Guantanamo Bay detention camp suicide attempts

The United States Department of Defense (DOD) had stopped reporting Guantanamo suicide attempts in 2002. In mid-2002 the DoD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, and enumerated them under other acts of "self-injurious behavior".

On January 24, 2005 the U.S. military revealed that in 2003, there were 350 incidents of "self-harm".23 Detainees Attempted Suicide in Protest at Base, Military Says
, ''Associated Press'', January 25, 2005 120 of those incidents of self-harm were attempts by detainees to hang themselves. Twenty-three detainees participated in a mass-suicide attempt from August 18 to 26, 2003. A number of incidents happened after a change in command at the camp in 2003 resulted in an increase in the severity of interrogation techniques used by military and CIA intelligence officers.

On June 10, 2006, the DOD announced that three prisoners held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps had taken their own lives. The June 10, 2006 suicides were the first inmate deaths at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The DoD acknowledged there had been a total of 41 suicide attempts among 29 detainees until that date.Three detainees kill themselves at Guantanamo
''Reuters'', June 11, 2006 Since June 2006, DOD has announced three suicide deaths by detainees at Guantanamo. In 2008, the NCIS released a heavily redacted report of its investigation of the three suicides at Guantanamo in 2006.

In reports published in 2009 and 2010, Seton Hall University Law School's Center for Policy and Research and a joint investigation by '' Harper's Magazine'' and NBC News, respectively, strongly criticized the government's account of the 2006 suicides. ''Harper's'' 2010 article, based on accounts by four former Guantanamo guards, asserted that DOD had initiated a cover-up of deaths resulting from torture during interrogation. The DOD has denied these allegations.

History: Conditions of detainees

In 2002 the United States government kept conditions at Guantanamo extremely secret, not releasing information about the detainees and especially not their names. That year, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) stopped reporting suicide attempts at the camps.

In mid-2002 the DOD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, referring to these acts as "self-injurious behavior", one of many terms the Bush administration coined to describe camp events. Medical experts outside the camp have argued that doctors did not have sufficient understanding of the detainees to make such conclusions about their intentions or motives.

In the spring of 2003, 32 Afghans and three Pakistanis were released from the detention camp. News media reported from interviews with them that some former detainees described despair and numerous attempts among prisoners to take their own lives, in large part because of individuals' belief in their innocence, the harshness of camp conditions, and especially the indefinite confinement and unending uncertainty they faced.

Quotes from ex-detainees:

On January 24, 2005 the U.S. military revealed that in 2003, there were 350 incidents of "self-harm" among detainees at Guantanamo. 120 of those incidents were attempts by detainees to hang themselves. From August 18 to 26, 2003, twenty-three detainees participated in a mass-suicide attempt. Reporters noted that numerous attempted suicides occurred after a change in command at the camp resulted in an increase in the severity of interrogation techniques used against the detainees.

Reported suicides on June 10, 2006

On June 10, 2006 the DOD announced that three detainees had died at Guantanamo, saying they "killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact".Triple suicide at Guantanamo camp
, ''BBC
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