The Four Season Landscape

• Tom Phillips, A human rights activist, a secret prison and a tale from 习近平 (Xí Jìnpíng)’s new China, The Guardian, January 3, 2017

Peter Dahlin spent 23 days in a “black prison” in 北京 (Běijīng), where he says he was deprived of sleep and questioned with a “communication enhancement” machine. Here he tells the story of his incarceration and expulsion from the People’s Republic. [Read more].

The arrest of Peter Dahlin, as described to the Chiang Mai-based Mexican-American artist Nicolas Luna Fleck.

The activist says his interrogators then refused to let him sleep until he offered them detailed information and only relented after he protested to the centre’s boss – a woman who gave her name as Mrs. Zhang – that his treatment violated the UN convention against torture, which China ratified in 1988. “She was very upset”, Dahlin says of her reaction. “And went on about how nicely I’m being treated”. [Read more].

Peter Dahlin faces his interrogators. Illustration: Nicolas Luna Fleck.

Unlawful Entry

“I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!”
by Bobby Fischer
The World Chess Champion

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

I spent about nine months in an isolated cell behind a one-way mirror. It was cruel, degrading and inhumane Shortly after arriving at a makeshift military jail, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in May 2010, I was placed into the black hole of solitary confinement for the first time. Within two weeks, I was contemplating suicide. After a month on suicide watch, I was transferred back to U.S., to a tiny 6 x 8ft (roughly 2 x 2.5 meter) cell in a place that will haunt me for the rest of my life: the U.S. Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Virginia. I was held there for roughly nine months as a “prevention of injury” prisoner, a designation the Marine Corps and the Navy used to place me in highly restrictive solitary conditions without a psychiatrist’s approval. For 17 hours a day, I sat directly in front of at least two Marine Corps guards seated behind a one-way mirror. I was not allowed to lay down. I was not allowed to lean my back against the cell wall. I was not allowed to exercise. Sometimes, to keep from going crazy, I would stand up, walk around, or dance, as “dancing” was not considered exercise by the Marine Corps. [Read more].

• Chelsea E. Manning, Solitary confinement is “no touch” torture, and it must be abolished, The Guardian, May 2, 2016

“For 17 hours a day, I sat directly in front of at least two Marine Corps guards seated behind a one-way mirror. I was not allowed to lay down. I was not allowed to lean my back against the cell wall”. Photo: Ed Thomas.