Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Afogamento simulado" in Portuguese language version.
I have described the waterboarding I was submitted to. And no one can say, having passed through it, that this was not torture, especially when he has endured other types of torture—burning, electricity and beating, and so on.
Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said.
Waterboarding has been torture for at least 500 years. All of us know that torture is going on.
It was terrifying," military psychologist Bryce Lefever is quoted as saying, "...you're strapped to an inclined gurney and you're in four-point restraint, your head is almost immobilized, and they pour water between your nose and your mouth, so if you're likely to breathe, you're going to get a lot of water. You go into an oxygen panic.
As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.
