The US justice department is investigating claims that many of the hundreds of Middle Eastern men detained in American jails after September 11 have been beaten and verbally abused by prison guards.
The inspector general, Glenn Fine, the justice department's internal watchdog, is conducting a "review of allegations" after lawyers representing some of the men still in detention said their clients had been kicked and punched.
Some detainees say abuse at the metropolitan detention centre in Brooklyn intensified after they cooperated with the initial investigation by the inspector general's office.
At least two began a hunger strike this week, their lawyers said. Many are being held for visa-related violations and have not been charged with a crime.
"They have been struck physically, strip-searched, deliberately stopped from praying; they've been cuffed behind their backs, picked up by their thumbs and dragged from one place to another," said Sandra Nicholls, representing two current detainees. "They feel they are suffering reprisals because they talked to the inspector general."
One inmate said he was told: "Now you're suffering like the people in the towers suffered." Two others recently deported had been physically abused before being put in solitary confinement, their lawyer, Martin Stolar, said.
One was "picked up and thrown from corner to corner of his cell while being accused of involvement in September 11," Mr Stolar said,
The second was "knocked around, pushed into a wall by [immigration service] agents, and kept in solitary confinement [for] 23 hours a day, lights on all the time, subject to verbal abuse [about his religion]".
Dennis Hasty, the detention centre's warden, was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Some basic privileges, such as the provision of pillows, were granted to the general prison population but not to the detainees, Ms Nicholls alleged.
"The murderers get this stuff and these people, who haven't been charged with anything, don't," she said.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, about 1,200 non-US nationals were detained for visa-related violations. While a handful did have connections to the hijackers, none has been charged with involvement in those atrocities.
Amnesty International has condemned the "extreme secrecy" with which the detentions have been handled, accusing the immigration and naturalisation service of violating international law.
The American Civil Liberties Union has brought a case against several counties where detainees are being held, accusing them of illegally withholding their names.
Another organisation, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, is suing the bureau of prisons in New York on the inmates' behalf.
Some of the remaining detainees, almost all of whom are being held in Brooklyn and two New Jersey jails, have agreed to voluntary deportation, but are still held for months, according to Drum, a campaigning organisations which holds weekly protests outside the prison.
One lawyer spoke of a four-month wait, even after a detainee had agreed to leave the country and the lawyer had bought his airline ticket.
"Families are being torn apart," said Monami Maulik, an immigrant rights organiser at Drum. "These people are being isolated, often not allowed access to legal assistance. This is racial profiling - the targeting and arresting of immigrants. We want answers."
Detention for minor immigration violations is almost unheard of, but an INS spokesman denied that the policy had been applied in a biased way.
"The actions taken are based upon the 9/11 investigation - period," Russ Bergeron said. "Not their ethnicity. Not their nationality. Not their religion."
www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,721207,00.htmlE-mail this article