The BBC ran a strange story yesterday about the military hearing of a Guantanamo detainee which was held behind closed doors. Under the headline US detainee ‘mentally tortured’, the BBC reported:

Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation.

This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr Khan said.

Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of “cheap, branded, unscented soap”, the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that “hardly bounce”.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much 24, but since when did the wrong prescription glasses, a prison newsletter and half-inflated balls constitute torture? Surely even force feeding a detainee on hunger strike doesn’t amount to torture. And since when would any of these methods provoke someone to attempt suicide by chewing through their artery?

What’s interesting about the BBC story is that with just a couple of extra details it could have made a much stronger case for Khan’s allegations of torture.

The same story in the New York Times today said that the transcript of the hearing, which was held behind closed doors, was “heavily redacted” and that “it appeared that many of Mr. Khan’s accusations of torture had been redacted.” Additionally, Khan’s lawyer claimed that the redactions of sections dealing with her client’s torture allegations showed “that the United States…disregarded the fundamental rule of law.”

So why leave it out? Is the BBC suddenly on Jack Bauer’s ‘torture now, ask questions later’ side?