By Kaitlin Keane

Just one year after the release of photographs showing American troops abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a panel of lawyers, activists and former military personnel retold specific accounts of the continued implementation of such tactics in American-run prisons.

“Torture and detention: Is this the American Way?” was sponsored by Ford Hall Forum and Amnesty International at Faneuil Hall last night, and focused on the use of inhumane tactics in holding and interrogating detainees since September 11. The panel spoke of witnessed abuse, the torture claims of legal clients and the legal and constitutional implications of such tactics during the Iraq war.

The event was originally scheduled to include the two women married to current prisoners held in Bosnia and Guantanamo Bay, but their visas were denied last minute due to the nature of their spouses’ detention, according to attorney Steve Oleskey.

Barbara Olshansky, a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, spoke to the packed hall about the work of the center, a non-profit legal and educational organization that aims to protect the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

The organization became involved with the detainee situation in the weeks following September 11, as they were flooded with panicked phone calls from people whose relatives were victims of “snatch and grab arrests,” in which they were left with no information as to which government agency was responsible. Olshansky spoke of the weeks following the initial collecting of prisoners following the September 11 attacks and the President George W. Bush administration’s decision to not abide by the provisions of the Geneva Convention, which dictates standards of prisoner treatment.

Each member of the panel gave separate detailed accounts of torture, abuse and prolonged detention in prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, though the only first-person recounting of alleged abuse was by Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantanamo who has written a book about his experiences with interrogators.

Saar, who told the audience he went to Cuba expecting to face prisoners classified as “the worst of the worst,” gave an eye-witness account of the implementation of explicitly sexual strategies used by female American officials to alienate and humiliate Muslim detainees. The use of inappropriate tactics, coupled with the nature of the detainees’ supposed crimes, he said, did not seem justified.

“When you weigh the intelligence gathering in contrast to the [loss of] moral authority in the world, the intelligence is meager,” he said of the information gathered from the detainees in which he witnessed the interrogation. He went on to detail the anti-Muslim tactics implemented, and expressed grief at the situation as a “moral failure in the war on terrorism.”

Another speaker with close ties to several detainees, Steve Oles-key, is currently defending six men that have been held both in Bosnia and Cuba. He spoke both from a legal standpoint about inconsistencies in the U.S. administration’s policies regarding prisoners as well as the personal plights of his defendants – who claim to have been taken from Bosnia after being deemed innocent by Bosnian courts.

The difficulty in defending such clients is great, he explained, due to the administration’s decision to ignore provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, which keep him from obtaining relevant medical records, and strict security clearance requirements in visiting his clients.

The panel stressed, overall, the necessity for public involvement in bringing an end to illegal tactics of detention and interrogation, and explained the direct implications of such tactics for both the American people and international perception of the country. For that reason, the speakers and many members of the audience expressed frustration with the lack of outrage over the release of pictures of abuse last year.

Olshansky expressed concern on behalf of the panel and colleagues devoted to the preservation of constitutional rights regarding the future American implications of such permitted violations of human rights.

“I think the light that this country should always be shining to the path to democracy for other countries around the world … starts to go out at an incredible rate,” she said of the potential danger of lack of reaction to the alleged injustices by American soldiers. “I don’t know about you, but that’s not my America.”