BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
The United States’ Department of State published a multi-page report on human rights in Zimbabwe for 2020. How many US Central Intelligence Agency IA personnel stationed at the US embassy as well as undercover of non-governmental organisations and humanitarian organisations in Zimbabwe, remain a mystery.
But judging by the thoroughness of the prepared report, there are a lot of them in the Second Republic.The document, as usual, is filled with accusations of the authorities and law enforcement agencies in all imaginable and inconceivable crimes.
The set of accusations is extensive and standard for the American administration in relation to other “undemocratic” countries.
Among them such points like :
Arbitrary deprivation of life and other unlawful or politically motivated killings;
Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
Arbitrary arrest or detention;
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Denial of fair public trial.
And there are many, many others.
And in all there are examples to accuse the Zimbabwean government of violations of human rights and the foundations of democracy.
Many pages of the report are devoted to the situation in Zimbabwe’s prisons.
But what is happening in the US and how Washington is dealing with the issue of human rights, including in prisons remains untold.
Probably one of the best examples can be notorious special prison Guantanamo, located on the United States Naval Base in Cuba.
 International organizations have long demanded to close the facility where suspected terrorists are tortured for years without trial.
At the same time, the fact of torture and humiliation of the dignity of the individual is practically not hidden, but also not advertised. Mainly, the methods of work of prison staff with prisoners were hidden.
Despite all the calls to close the prison, so far, the American administration has decided only to shut down the Camp 7 block, and even then not completely.
The prisoners who were in it were transferred to the empty Camp 5 in order to “improve the efficiency of the use” of the buildings.
Earlier it was officially reported that 17 criminals are being held in Camp 7, and there are about 40 of them in Guantanamo prison.
In its 19 years of existence, nearly 800 people have passed through Guantanamo, mostly suspected of having links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Before getting there, many ended up in “black places” – secret CIA prisons. And they did not always know what exactly they were accused of.
They understood one thing: they are suspected of having links with terrorists and want to extract as much valuable information as possible.
The methods of work of American special services are far from humane, which has long been a concern of international organizations.
“Terrorist threats are numerous throughout the territory of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as in a number of conflict regions.
But respect for human rights is not a matter of choice, it is a legal obligation,” the OSCE reminded, criticising Guantanamo.
Recently, British actor Benedict Cumberbatch , who played one of the main roles in the movie “The Mauritanian” about a man who was unjustly in Guantanamo, said that he was going to plead with US President Joe Biden to shut  down Guantanamo.
The methods used by the US authorities to counter terrorism have attracted attention on several occasions.
A year ago, a psychologist who participated in the development of the CIA interrogation programme at Guantanamo, said that the prisoners were tortured until they testified, but they did not stop there either – it was necessary to make sure that they did not lie.
And all this is happening with the approval of the US Department of Justice.
Pakistani Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn survived one of the first interrogations according to the scheme approved by the Department of Justice.
However, he was mistakenly suspected of being a high-ranking al-Qaeda member and related to the 2001 terrorist attacks.
 Hussein spent four years in secret CIA prisons, no charges were brought against him and, judging by the documents of the investigation, they were not going to.
The Pakistani made sketches of what he went through.
It is forbidden to be creative in prison, he created the illustrations specifically for the report “How America Tortures” of his lawyer, Mark P. Denbeaux – about methods of working with especially dangerous criminals.
One of the most common bullying that Hussein suffered 83 times is water torture, known during the Spanish Inquisition.
The nude prisoner is tied up and laid on a bunk.
The face is covered with a cloth, and then water is poured on top so that it seems to the person that he is drowning and is about to die.
Another way to gain valuable information is to put your wrists in a “stress position”: attach your wrists to the wall above your head at such a level that the prisoner stands on tiptoe.
In this position, the person spends hours, then the interrogation continues.
Sometimes the prisoner was simply tied in a fetal position and shackled to the bars.
To disorient the interrogated, they beat him with the back of his head against a concrete wall.
According to Hussein, after each such blow, he lost his sight for some time and fell to the floor, then the procedure was repeated.
In addition, the suspects were placed in large and small boxes.
In the big one they sat on a pedestal without the ability to stand up to their full height.
In the little one – they lay curled up.
Sometimes insects were launched inside. It was not possible to move and take at least some comfortable posture.
Hussein said that he spent long hours in boxes, and screamed almost all the time from pain and muscle cramps.
In order for a prisoner, as the CIA explained, “to focus on what is happening and not on his ideology,” he was deprived of sleep.
In a horizontal position, they were tied in such a position that it was impossible to fall asleep because of the pain.
Hussein suffered for two or three weeks in a row. “It seemed to last forever,” he said.
 “Sometimes I fell asleep, and then the guard poured water over me.”
The closure of Camp 7 is not yet the elimination of Guantanamo itself, as promised by the former US President Barack Obama.
The plans of the 44th president were opposed by the Congress, in which the majority were Republicans.
Ten years later, the immediate former US president Donald Trump signed a decree refusing to liquidate the prison.
However, Biden’s administration has returned to Obama’s idea of closing Guantanamo.
So far, Biden’s team has not provided any specifics. Prisoners can be repatriated or they can find prisons in other countries.
At the same time, the problem of the Obama era has not disappeared anywhere, and Biden will probably also be hindered by Congress.
 When the new United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, announced that the administration would push for a closure of the prison, Republicans in the House of Representatives – military veterans – protested.
“If we release these GITMO detainees, they’ll become rockstars in the Islamist Extremist world, posing an even greater threat to America and the world” said Afghan veteran Congressman Mike Waltz.
Despite the efforts of human rights defenders and Biden’s initiative, the arguments of opponents may outweigh.
Nine detainees at Guantanamo have already been charged or even sentenced. Another 20 prisoners are said to be too dangerous to be released.
Biden and his team will have to convince the Americans. Whether the new president will be able to win public opinion to his side is a big question.
But the fact that hidden by the American administration arbitrariness and bullying are taking place in Guantanamo prison, which are much more terrible than those of which the Zimbabwean prisons are accused, is an irrefutable fact.
