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Carl Court / AFP – Getty Images; Dan Kitwood / Getty Images; Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
These photos of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arriving at Westminster Magistrates Court inside a prison van with red windows reminded me of Ben Graville’s past work, which I wrote about here.
Graville’s In & Out The Old Bailey caused some controversy drawing accusations of exploitation. Do we feel Assange is being exploited here? I don’t really think so. Assange is well aware of media praxis and photographer protocols for winning that shot. By his direct eye contact, it would seem he’s putting on a show for these photographers? Or maybe it’s just the edit?
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RED?
You could run hog wild with reading the colour here, but I won’t. I’ll just mention, witch-hunts, the Hunt for Red October, Red Letter Day, the commies, the Reds, blood on “their” hands, whoever they are, the Scarlet Pimpernel, drive by night tactics, sex by surprise, red light districts and the red ink of Top Secret papers. All collapsing on top of this portrait of a man, still widely misrepresented.
This is funny, and could launch a thousand visual studies crit papers.
Remember Hugh Hefner and co. just sank $900,000 into saving and preserving this sign.
Found via i heart photograph
CONVERGENCE?
Stock vs. Fine Art; Standard view vs. Privileged view etc …
Worth contrasting Getty’s butchering with Emily Shur’s Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles, California. Featured on Shur’s blog.
Screengrab - Inmate Benjamin Terry stands with Sierra, a mustang he trains as part of the Wild Horse and Inmate Program at the Cañon City Correctional Complex on March 17, 2010 in Cañon City, Colorado. © Dana Romanoff
This is a great photo essay, simply because it is a great story. Unexpected.
Dana Romanoff documents efforts by The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to round up wild horses and consequently tame them and offer them up for adoption.
“There exist approximately 63,000 wild horses under BLM management. The BLM currently has more than 36,000 horses in captivity in short term corrals and long term pastures. In 2009, the BLM removed 6,300 horses from the wild and in 2010; the BLM plans to remove nearly 13,000 more.”
“A few thousand of the rounded up horses temporarily live at the Cañon City Correctional Facility, Colorado. Under the Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP) inmates care for, train and ready selected horses for adoption by the public. Some say the Wild Horse Inmate Program “takes the wild out of both the man and the mustang.” Often an inmate has one horse that he works with and gets to name. Inmates learn a trade and the responsibility of having a job while horses are taught to trust humans, and be saddle and bridal trained. Both a bit spooked at first, the tattooed and muscled inmate and the scared and wild horse learn to trust each other form a bond.”
Who knew?
Well, probably many if they follow Getty Reportage, who are now also on Twitter at @GettyImagesRPTG.
See the prisoner-stereotype-busting images of ‘Wild No More’ here.
BLM
As a footnote, if you go ever go camping in the West do so on BLM land. It is well run, sparsely occupied and has fewer restrictions than any other government run land. For camping, conditions are perfect.
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Who Knew? UPDATE (07.06.10)
Matt Slaby has also covered this story in the past.
BLM UPDATE (07.06.10)
While I’m yapping on about the quality of undisturbed camping, Ellen Rennard is bringing more serious questions to the table about BLM’s relationship with environment-killing big business. (See comments/sources below). Thanks Ellen!
Still from video shown to the Baha Mousa public Inquiry showing Corporal Donald Payne, formerly of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, shouting and swearing at hooded Iraqi detainees.
The British Army is facing accusations as serious as those leveled against the US military at Abu Ghraib.
Let me offer some context of UK Army abuses in Iraq.
Only one British soldier has ever been sentenced to prison for detainee abuses in Iraq. He is Corporal Donald Payne. Above is a still from this very disturbing video which was released in June of this year into the inquiry of Baha Mousa‘s death. A long-running and contradicting narrative followed this case since Mousa’s death in 2003 and the opening of the first inquiry in 2006. BBC has a timeline.
It seems that Corporal Payne and the six other soldiers aquitted during this inquiry may not have been the only British soldiers involved in abuse. I must say that these allegations are still just that – they are unproven, yet to be fully investigated.
Robert Verkaik of the Independent has pursued this story here and here:
The 33 new cases, which form part of a pre-action protocol letter served on the MoD last week, include allegations of mock executions, dog attacks, rape, exposure to lewd acts and exposure to pornography. The abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003 – the time as Baha Mousa’s torture and death.
It is suggested it has taken so long for the allegations to come about because the Iraqi’s were fearful of reprisals during the British occupation of Southern Iraq. UK forces pulled out in April, 2009. Three camps are named: Shaat-al-Arab camp (shown below), Shaaibah British camp and Akka in Al-Zubayr.
Shaat-al-Arab camp, Southern Iraq
Details of abuse:
In May 2003, a 16-year-old Iraqi was among a group of Iraqis taken to the Shatt-al-Arab British camp to help fill sandbags. When the Iraqi youth, who wishes to remain anonymous, and his friends had filled the available sandbags, a British soldier indicated that he should enter a room, from where he assumed that he was to retrieve more sand bags, he says.
On entering the room, he claims he saw two British male soldiers engaged in oral sex. As soon as the two men saw him enter, they started to beat and kick him, he alleges. When he fell to the floor, one of the men held a blade to his neck while the other soldier stripped him naked. Although he screamed in protest, the two British soldiers, one after the other, raped him.
More:
They took off our blindfolds and I could see that we were surrounded by seven or eight soldiers. There were five of us. They asked us to pick fights with one another, or fight them. They were laughing at us and taking photos with digital cameras. They made us squeeze in pile-up, as in Abu Ghraib prison photos, while a soldier stood on top of us and started shouting and laughing. I felt so humiliated and treated as a toy they messed up with.
They picked further on a younger man who was good-looking. They made him strip naked and started messing with his penis and taking photos. “On one occasion I refused to pick a fight, then a soldier kicked me hard on my back, which made me fall on the floor. He started hitting me with a baton on my knees. Then he used an electric baton on different parts of my body.”
Source: Independent Saturday, 14 November 2009
Of course one wonders now whether the investigations will publish the photographic evidence or if it will be used only internally.
Personally, I have no desire to see these images. I sympathise with arguments to say that only through release of such images can the world know the full extent of what happened, but I also doubt what we can actually and accurately “know” from photographs that we wouldn’t otherwise learn through full disclosure and description of events.
It is extremely unfortunate that both Google and Daylife image searches for “Shaat-al-Arab camp” result in this image.
British soldiers share a laugh as their comrade walks around dressed as Borat, the Kazakh journalist played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, during Christmas celebrations at the Shatt al-Arab camp in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra on December 25, 2008. The Iraqi parliament has voted to allow the presence of non-US foreign troops after December 31, giving British troops a legal basis to remain beyond the expiry of a UN mandate. © ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP/Getty Images
But the madness, brevity, violence, stress, justified escapism, testosterone and “laws” of war are vastly different than in any other milieu.
It just seems to me that the internet has collided stories and images here that could be as valid a critique of 20th century war as any of the great American Vietnam films.
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Interestingly, Shaat-al-Arab camp was erased by Google from their maps three years ago for security reasons. This action seems warranted as Shaat-al-Arab camp was a common target for insurgents – as Abu Ghraib was. Details are described half way through this article.
Thanks to Sean for the tip off.
An interior view of the dining facility at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009 in Baghdad, Iraq. Wathiq Khuzaie for Getty Images Europe.
Yesterday, my good friend Debra Baida sent me through the link to the New York Times Abu Ghraib – Baghdad Bureau Blog. This came at the same moment I was preparing a post to discuss the first images to come out of the renamed, refurbished and relaunched Baghdad Central Prison.
By far the best, and possibly the only, extended photo essay of Abu Ghraib Baghdad Central Prison is by Wathiq Khuzaie of Getty Images Europe. There is also this brief video from the BBC.
Iraqi security personnel stand guard at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009 in Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi Ministry of Justice has renovated and reopened the previously named "Abu Ghraib" prison and renamed the site to Baghdad Central Prison. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe
New Era, New Penology
The BBC noted, “Along with the change of name, the Iraqi justice ministry is trying to change both image and reality, billing it as a model prison, open to random inspection by the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations.”
This transparency is a refreshing change to the policy of Abu Ghraib’s former operators. The work is not yet complete though and the upgrade is ongoing. The BBC describes, “[The prison] will eventually be the city’s main jail, holding about 12,000 inmates. Initially, only one of its four sections will be used. There are already about 300 prisoners there to test it out and, once the prison has been officially inaugurated, that figure will rise to 3,500.”
So, not only do Iraqi authorities want to repurpose the institution, they want to make it the penal institution of “The New Iraq”. This is an ambitious policy riddled with dangers; the site is loaded with memory and controversy. As the New York Times notes, “the promise of a new era can also be a time for remembrance.”
I highly recommend one goes onto read accounts from Iraqis, correspondents and photographers who lived and recorded Abu Ghraib’s recent history, particularly photographer Tyler Hicks’ account of Saddam’s prison amnesty in October 2002 that turned from celebration to human catastrophe.
Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe
An interior view of one of the cells at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009 in Baghdad, Iraq. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe
Two things struck me about the photographic series of the new prison. Firstly, the number of flags, insignia and national colours across walls, above fences and emblazoned on uniforms. The Iraqi authorities have stamped their identity all over this project. It is the presentation necessary to supersede Abu Ghraib’s reputation.
Secondly, the pastel palette of many of the interior shots – namely the ubiquitous lilac. I want to know who has the decision-making power at Baghdad Central Prison! However, I suspect lilac paint was cheap and readily available; so it wasn’t so much a decision – more a fact created by circumstance.
Interior view of the barbers shop at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe.
Following that logic, one could presume lilac and purple fabric & thread is also at a surplus in Baghdad…
Interior view of sewing machines at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe.
I don’t want to sound facetious, I was just shocked by the light purple, which according to colour theory is supposed to evoke emotional memory and nostalgia. Darker purples are supposed to represented, nobility, royalty and stability. From those evocations one is instilled with wisdom, independence, dignity and creativity.
If Baghdad Central Prison is to spur such emotional response in its inmate population it will succeed where many, many prisons have failed.
Basically, I am hopeful that the new prison can operate justly and succeed with the rehabilitation it emphasised this week. And despite all the lilac, soft-furnishings and current open media access – in reality it remains a prison with doors, locks and guards.
Interior view of cell doors at the newly opened Baghdad Central Prison in Abu Ghraib on February 21, 2009 in Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi Ministry of Justice has renovated and reopened the previously named "Abu Ghraib" prison and renamed the site to Baghdad Central Prison. According to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice about 400 prisoners were transferred to the prison which can hold up to 3000 inmates. The prison was established in 1970 and it became synonymous with abuse under the U.S. occupation. Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Europe.
Prison Photography 