A Very British Killing by A. T. Williams

Author:A. T. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448138777
Publisher: Random House

Unaccustomed discipline

Prison diet

Enforced idleness

Confinement and lack of comfort

Atmosphere of ruthless efficiency

Lack of news

Loss of companionship

Loss of sensory contact with the outside world

Mental fatigue

Lack of sleep

Mistrust of comrades

Feeling of failure

Sexual frustration

Inferiority complex

Show of knowledge

Interrogator’s personality

Transference

Many of these items were pregnant with violence. Lack of comfort, loss of sensory contact, lack of sleep, atmosphere of ruthless efficiency, fatigue, sexual frustration. These were all permissible. But how easy would it have been to distinguish between what was allowed and what would contravene the Geneva Conventions? If ‘lack of sleep’ was tolerated then would dropping an iron bar on the floor to keep detainees awake be OK? If fatigue was acceptable, then would making prisoners stay in awkward body positions be allowed? And how would sexual frustration be systemically induced? These guidelines were supposed to be handed over to interrogators who might have a prisoner for maybe a few weeks at most. How would they create sexual frustration in such circumstances? How would an interrogator interpret such a possibility? If these ‘pressures’ were allowable as part of a system of capture and detention, then how would a soldier be capable of drawing lines?

The document’s caveat that any pressure would have to be assessed in accordance with the law of armed conflict may have looked fine, much like those small-print disavowals of responsibility in insurance policies. In the world of a dirty prison in a conflict zone where officers are baying for information, would an interrogator know how far to go? Were the lines sharp and bright?

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