Taken from an article in the New York Times, November 5, 2011 written by Sarah Shourd, a writer who was imprisoned in Iran, entitled “Torture by Solitude.”
“After two months with next to no human contact, my mind began to slip. Some days, I heard phantom footsteps coming down the hall. I spent large portions of my days crouched down on all fours by a small slit in the door, listening. In the periphery of my vision, I began to see flashing lights, only to jerk my head around to find that nothing was there. More than once, I beat at the walls until my knuckles bled and cried myself into a state of exhaustion. At one point, I heard someone screaming, and it wasn’t until I felt the hands of one of the friendlier guards on my face, trying to revive me, that I realized the screams were my own.
Of the 14 and a half months, or 9,840 hours, I was held as a political hostage at Evin prison in Tehran, I spent 9,495 of them in solitary confinement. I was shocked to find out that the United Nations Convention Against Torture, one of the few conventions the United States has ratified, does not mention solitary confinement. I learned that there are untold numbers of prisoners around the world in solitary, including an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 in the United States. According to the United Nations the practice appears to be growing and diversifying in its use and severity.
“Amy Fettig at the American Civil Liberties Union said: “In the U.S. we use solitary as a routine prison administrative practice. It’s not something that’s used as a last recourse, as it should be.”
“The United States is the country with the most prisoners in solitary confinement in the world. There needs to be clearer standards regarding what is disciplinary and what moves into the category of ‘severe pain and suffering, either physical or mental,’ which is definitely prohibited under international law. There should be a ban on prolonged solitary confinement. Any case that lasts more than 15 days should be carefully investigated.
“You don’t have to beat someone to inflict pain and suffering; the psychological torture of prolonged solitary confinement leaves no marks, but its effects are severe and long-lasting. The excessive use of solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment — that it is torture. The United Nations should proscribe this inhumane practice, and the United States should take the lead role in its eradication.”