The Military Court Centre at Bulford, Wiltshire. Press Association/Barry Batchelor. All rights reserved.
In August 1971, the British government sanctioned a mass detention operation in Northern Ireland in response to increasing violence in the Province. Those arrested were taken to specially prepared holding centres in central Belfast, Londonderry and County Down. More than 3000 people were interned by March 1972.
The Five Techniques
It didn’t take long for internment to become known as a ruthless and brutal process. Those arrested and later released spoke of a systematic handling insidious in its ability to induce hopelessness, fear and chronic stress. Five methods of treatment were used across the detention centres. Prisoners were hooded, forced to stand spread-eagled against a wall, placed in rooms where a constant loud and hissing noise was played, prevented from sleeping before interrogation, and given minimal food and drink. The measures were intended to break the internees, to make them more susceptible to interrogation. They were called the Five Techniques and together amounted to cruel and inhumane treatment according to the European Court of Human Rights.
