Amnesty International reports torture and human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz”

Amnesty International reports torture and human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz”

In 2005, more reports revealed torture and human rights violations at Abu Gharaib prison

By Lynda Carson - December 12, 2025

Some older images from Abu Gharaib prison in Iraq, reported by CBS News may be found by clicking here.

Amnesty International Report

A recent as December 4, 2025, Amnesty International released a new report that documents cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of immigrants at two immigration detention centers in Florida, including the Everglades Detention Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) and the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome).

According to a press release with Amnesty International, in part it says, “The report, Torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida, reveals human rights violations that, in some cases amount to torture, occurring at Krome and “Alligator Alcatraz” within an increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis, whose administration has intensified criminalization and mass detention of migrants and people seeking safety. Findings were gathered during a September 2025 research mission. 

“These findings confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide the suffering of people in detention,” said Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Americas. “Immigration enforcement cannot operate outside the rule of law or exempt itself from human rights standards. What we are seeing in Florida should alarm the entire region.”

The research concluded that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are living in inhuman and unsanitary conditions including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy – including cameras above the toilets.
  
People interviewed shared that access to medical care is inconsistent, inadequate, or denied all together, placing individuals at serious risk of physical and mental harm. People reported being always shackled when they were outside their cage. Other treatment those detained have endured amounts to torture, including being put in the “box”,described as a 2×2 foot cage-like structure people are put in as punishment – sometimes for hours at a time exposed to the elements with hardly any water – with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
  
“Alligator Alcatraz” operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities. The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer.
   
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights with Amnesty International USA.  “This is unreal – where’s the oversight?”

More information from the Amnesty International press release my be found by clicking here.

If curious, more about accusations and reports of torture and human rights violations made against our government may be found below.

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com

Torture and Human Rights Violations by The Americans

May 26, 2005 report, called MEDIA REACTION REPORT - AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL REPORT MIDDLE EAST.

In part, it says;

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL REPORT

"CROSSING THE LINE"

“HERVE CANNET IN REGIONAL LA NOUVELLE REPUBLIQUE DU CENTRE
(05/26): "THE U.S. AND GREAT BRITAIN, IN REACTION TO THESE
KILLERS (THE TERRORISTS) HAVE NEVERTHELESS CROSSED THE LINE BY
NORMALIZING THE USE OF TORTURE AND BY SACRIFICING, OFFICIALLY
AND IN THE NAME OF THEIR OWN SECURITY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DIGNITY, WHICH THEY CLAIM TO OTHERWISE DEFEND: IN AFGHANISTAN,
IN IRAQ OR IN THE INFAMOUS PRISON OF GUANTANAMO, `THE NEW
GULAG OF OUR TIMES,' AND A ZONE OF LAWLESSNESS. BEHIND THESE
ACCUSATIONS, WHICH CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED, LURK ALL MANNER OF
TORTURERS EVERYWHERE UNITING TO CHALLENGE HUMAN RIGHTS. THE
SHAMEFUL SILENCE OF THE WORLD AND THE UN MUST NOT LET AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL'S CRY ECHO IN A DESERT OF GOOD INTENTIONS."

"TORTURE AND SEMANTICS"

“JACQUES CAMUS IN REGIONAL LA REPUBLIQUE DU CENTRE (05/26):
"THE AI REPORT IS A PAINFUL CATALOGUE OF HORRORS. THE REPORT
ZEALOUSLY POINTS AN ACCUSING FINGER AT ONE AND ALL. IT IS
REGRETTABLE THAT THE U.S. IS CRITICIZED WITH AS MUCH
INSISTENCE AS NORTH KOREA. BUT OUR DEMOCRACIES MUST SERVE AS
EXAMPLES. IN THIS REGARD AI'S CONDEMNATION OF
INSTITUTIONALIZED TORTURE BY THE AMERICANS IN THE NAME OF AN
IDEAL OF JUSTICE, IN THE PRISONS OF BAGRAM, GUANTANAMO AND ABU
GHARAIB, ARE UNDERSTANDABLE. BY PLAYING WITH SEMANTICS AND
CALLING TORTURE `SENSORY MANIPULATION' THE WHITE HOUSE IS
LOOKING TO REMOVE GUILT FROM THE GUILTY. THIS IS NO MORE
TOLERABLE THAN THE HUMILIATION INFLICTED BY U.S. SOLDIERS."

"AMNESTY DENOUNCES `GUANTANAMO THE GULAG'"
JACQUES DUPLOUICH IN RIGHT-OF-CENTER LE FIGARO (05/26): "THE
WORST EXAMPLE GIVEN IN THE AI REPORT IS THAT OF THE U.S. .
WHICH HAS `REDEFINED' THE NOTION OF TORTURE AS PART OF ITS WAR
AGAINST TERRORISM. THE INVENTORY OF ATROCITIES, INJUSTICES AND
NON-IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ARE INDEED
DEPRESSING."

"FOR AI, GUANTANAMO IS A `MODERN GULAG'"

JEAN-PIERRE LANGELLIER IN LEFT-OF-CENTER LE MONDE (05/26):
"CONTINUOUS AND MASSIVE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AROUND THE
WORLD ARE A BETRAYAL OF A PROMISE MADE BY THE WORLD'S LEADERS,
AND FOREMOST BY THE MOST POWERFUL OF THEM ALL: THIS IS THE
MAIN ACCUSATION MADE BY AI IN ITS ANNUAL REPORT. IN THIS
CATALOGUE OF HORRORS, GOOD NEWS IS SCARCE AND ALL THE MORE
PRECIOUS. AI IS SATISFIED WITH SEVERAL DECISIONS MADE BY THE
U.S. SUPREME COURT REGARDING SEVERAL GUANTANAMO PRISONERS."

"THE U.S. ON THE BENCH OF THE ACCUSED"

SACHA BALIT VANDERBROUCK IN RIGHT-OF-CENTER FRANCE SOIR
(05/26): "AI IS DENOUNCING A `NEW WORLD ORDER' WITH AT ITS
CORE THE WAR AGAINST TERROR. AND ON THE BENCH OF THE ACCUSED
STANDS THE U.S. WHICH CLAIMS TO BE A NATION OF JUSTICE AND
FREEDOM, WHILE SOME OF ITS SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF
TORTURE AND ILL TREATMENT IN THE IRAQI PRISON OF ABU GHARAIB
AND IN GUANTANAMO, WHICH AI CALLS A `MODERN TIMES GULAG.' FOR
AI, WASHINGTON IS INAUGURATING NEW TERMINOLOGY., USING TRENDY
MANAGEMENT VOCABULARY TO SWEETEN WHAT IS TORTURE, CALLING IT
ENVIRONMENTAL MANIPULATION. MORE SERIOUS EVEN IS THE FACT THAT
BY GIVING IN TO SUCH PRACTICES, THE FIRST WORLD POWER IS
ENCOURAGING OTHERS DO TO DO LIKEWISE."

Human Rights Watch - Abu Gharaib Prison In Iraq

September 27, 2005 report, called MEDIA REACTION REPORT - GWOT - ABU GHARAIB - GUANTANAMO.

In part, it says;

Abu Gharaib - Guantanamo

"American Tortures"

Left-of-center Le Monde in its unsigned editorial (09/27): "As
thousands marched in protest in Washington, the Human Rights
Watch published a damning report for the U.S. Army on torture
methods and degrading treatment of prisoners implemented in
the name of the `war against terror.' This report is important
for two reasons: it destroys the myth that the torture methods
used in the Abu Gharaib prison were isolated incidents. It
also makes testimonials from American soldiers available. The
methods revealed are not new. They are used in Iraqi prisons,
in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo. They have been proven to be
systematic methods used by the U.S. The American
administration has not brought forward a satisfactory response
to the fact that its army violates the laws of war. It was
successful, in U.S. public opinion, as far as Abu Gharaib is
concerned, in demonstrating that the perpetrators were not
answering to direct orders. Will America accept this version
implicating `lost soldiers.?' The peace movement in the U.S.
is not fighting this battle, having chosen instead to save the
lives of its boys. By authorizing its Army to use methods
which international law qualifies as `severe violations of the
laws of war' such as `torture' and `inhuman treatment,' the
U.S. is placing itself outside the law and does a disservice
to that which it claims to be defending: liberty, justice and
democracy. Each time an Iraqi or an Afghan is abused and
killed, or tortured, it is a defeat for America and all those
who defend the values it pretends to be defending, simply
because America is a democracy. But more pragmatically, the
use of torture is one less opportunity for Washington to win
its wars, because for every prisoner who is abused, for every
picture from Abu Gharaib and Guantanamo, there are ten
combatants who rise against the U.S."

Before the situation of torture and inhumane conditions at Abu Gharaib Prison in Iraq were revealed to the world by the media, the US was doing it’s best to convince the world that it does not torture its prisoners, and that it abides by the Geneva Conventions.

April 1, 2005 report, called DASD WAXMAN'S CONSULTATIONS WITH GONL ON TREATMENT OF DETAINEES.

In part, it says, “On March 24, DASD for Detainee Affairs
Matthew Waxman met with senior Dutch MFA and MOD officials
and a broad GONL interagency team concerning the treatment of
detainees in the Global War on Terror. These consultations
grew out of a recent request from FM Bot to Secretary Rice
and Dep Sec Def Wolfowitz. DASD Waxman and his OSD team
provided an overview of U.S. detainee policy and addressed
specific GONL questions regarding U.S. policy on detainee
matters in the War on Terrorism. GONL interlocutors
repeatedly expressed their appreciation for the briefings
which they had sought following strong parliamentary concerns
related to the Dutch decision to deploy special forces as a
coalition member in OEF. The GONL position as to the
applicability of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of armed
conflict (LOAC) to OEF differs from that of the USG. The
GONL does not agree with the USG position that Al Qaeda and
Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants under the laws of
war. Both sides share the belief that detainees should be
accorded humane treatment in accordance with the principles
of the Conventions. The Dutch asked whether the U.S. might
be willing to make a joint statement to this effect, as it
would help the GONL manage its parliamentary concerns and
might also prove useful for the U.S. in managing perceptions
with other European allies. The Department of Defense agreed
to consider the idea.”

“DASD Waxman expressed gratitude for Dutch
participation and support in the Global War on Terror and
said the purpose of his visit was to clarify USG policies on
detainees and refute any misperceptions and to build upon
areas where there was agreement. He said that the U.S.
considers itself to be in a state of war and that it applies
the laws of armed conflict. He stressed that the U.S. is
committed to the Geneva Conventions and to humane treatment
of detainees. The U.S. believes the Geneva Conventions
contain obligations as well as protections. The Conventions
recognize lawful combatants in their text so by necessity
there are unlawful combatants. Al Qaeda and Taliban do not
abide by the obligations in the Conventions and are therefore
not entitled to protection as lawful combatants. Although Al
Qaeda and Taliban may not be entitled to protection as
solders under the Geneva Conventions, both the President and
the Secretary of Defense have directed that they be treated
humanely, regardless of their status. Schaper asked whether,
given the open-ended nature of the current conflict, it might
be worth exploring whether there was international consensus
to deal with terrorists by adding to the international legal
structure. OSD Associate General Counsel Davidson said the
U.S. looked to existing legal frameworks for guidance and
that the February 2002 Presidential direction on humane
treatment of prisoners said the U.S. would treat prisoners in
a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions.”

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