When I worked at an office job, I spent about a year standing through my entire workday. Afterwards, I would go home and stand until it was time for my walk. Since my sciatica kept me from sleeping, or even lying down, I was often on my feet for 16–20 hours a day.
I described this experience as torture. But even though I was being melodramatic, I wasn’t so far from the truth. Regimes the world over have used prolonged standing, often combined with sleep deprivation, as a convenient form of torture. It requires no special equipment, and usually leaves no marks.
Standing Up to the KGB
I was reading Elaine Scarry’s classic The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (I love me a book about misery), and came across a few tantalizing references to standing as a form of torture.
Naturally, this sent me down a research rabbit hole. All the tunnels seemed to lead back to a 1956 report written by two consultants to the Department of Defense. Fortunately, this report, which bears the pithy title Communist Interrogation and Indoctrination of “Enemies of the State”: Analysis of Methods Used by the Communist State Police (A Special Report) turned out to be the most fascinating government document I have ever read.
Part anti-communist propaganda, and part narrative of interrogation methods, the report was written in a refreshingly straightforward manner. Its purpose was to describe the methods of arrest, interrogation, and sentencing of prisoners in Russia and China. If you were ever curious about what would happen if you were captured by the KGB, this is the report for you.
When describing the ways that KGB interrogators would apply pressure to prisoners, the authors write:
Another which is widely used is that of requiring the prisoner to stand throughout the interrogation session or to maintain some other physical position which becomes painful. This, like other features of the KGB procedure, is a form of physical torture, in spite of the fact that the prisoners and KGB officers alike do not ordinarily perceive it as such.
Any fixed position which is maintained over a long period of time ultimately produces excruciating pain.
Certain positions, of which the standing position is one, also produce impairment of circulation. Many men can withstand the pain of long standing, but sooner or later all men succumb to the circulatory failure it produces.
After 18 to 24 hours of continuous standing, there is an accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the legs. This dependent edema is produced by the extravasation of fluid from the blood vessels. The ankles and feet of the prisoner swell to twice their normal circumference. The edema may rise up the legs as high as the middle of the thighs.
The skin becomes tense and intensely painful. Large blisters develop, which break and exude watery serum. The accumulation of the body fluid in the legs produces impairment of the circulation.
The heart rate increases, and fainting may occur. Eventually, there is a renal shutdown, and urine production ceases. Urea and other metabolites accumulate in the blood. The prisoner becomes thirsty and may drink a good deal of water, which is not excreted but adds to the edema of his legs.
Men have been known to remain standing for periods as long as several days. Ultimately they usually develop a delirious state, characterized by disorientation, fear, delusions, and visual hallucinations. This psychosis is produced by a combination of circulatory impairment, lack of sleep, and uremia.
(Note: In the original report, this is all one long paragraph. I added paragraph breaks to make it easier to read.)
As I read this description, I thought, that sounds familiar.
When I was standing for 15+ hours a day, my legs swelled up like thick sausages. (They still do in the summer, although I’ve learned to manage it by lying down, and wearing compression socks.)
I can attest that my skin did, in fact, become tense and intensely painful. The sensation is similar to sticking a garden hose into a water balloon, and waiting for it to explode.
I have no idea what my kidneys were doing, as I never got them tested. But I can say that my thirst was intense, and water went in, but not out.
And yes, I was having visual hallucinations. It’s hard to concentrate on what your coworkers are saying when they seem to be surrounded by spiders.
Also, You Can Die
As gruesome as this description is, it’s not a full a description of the health consequences of standing. A 2007 joint report by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First says that:
[P]rolonged standing may result in blood clots in the legs (deep vein thrombosis) which may subsequently travel to the lungs as pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolism can be fatal, and the risk is increased when immobility follows blunt trauma. Deaths due to prolonged restraint in prison settings have occurred in both civilian and military settings.
In addition to circulatory effects, prolonged standing can result in musculoskeletal (muscle and joint) foot and back pain, and can result in damage to peripheral nerves. Such nerve damage can result in decreased motor sensation, and decrease the ability of an individual to feel warmth, cold, or vibrations. Prolonged standing also carries the risk of fainting, which can result in significant blunt force trauma including head injury and fractures.
Worse Than the Threat of Death
Communists weren’t the only ones who found prolonged standing to be an effective interrogation technique. A 1963 CIA manual entitled KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation suggested that it could be a more effective way of wearing down a prisoner than outright beatings.
It has been plausibly suggested that, whereas pain inflicted on a person from outside himself may actually focus or intensify his will to resist, his resistance is likelier to be sapped by pain which he seems to inflict upon himself.
“In the simple torture situation the contest is one between the individual and his tormenter (…and he can frequently endure).
When the individual is told to stand at attention for long periods, an intervening factor is introduced. The immediate source of pain is not the interrogator but the victim himself.
The motivational strength of the individual is likely to exhaust itself in this internal encounter…As long as the subject remains standing, he is attributing to his captor the power to do something worse to him, but there is actually no showdown of the ability of the interrogator to do so.”
(Note: The paragraph breaks are all mine. Also, the quote in that section comes from the 1957 paper, Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confession from Air Force Prisoners of War, by Albert D. Biderman.)
By the way, the same manual notes that, “The threat of death has often been found to be worse than useless.”
Stress Positions
In larger studies of torture, prolonged torture is often categorized as a “stress position.” And reading about stress positions makes you realize that the KGB was downright genteel in their treatment of prisoners.
The same 1956 report states that the Chinese also used prolonged standing as torture, though they added some extra zip. And by “zip,” I mean leg chains. They also found out that, by wrapping gauze bandages around the ankles, they could make a prisoner’s swollen feet even more painful.
In Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali recounts many ways in which prolonged standing can be made even more unpleasant. These include standing with one’s toes and nose up against a wall, fixing one foot to the ground, standing on one leg, standing while holding something heavy, standing in snow or water, and standing naked.
In 1970s Brazil, guards would make prisoners, “[S]tand on top of cans with bare feet, in which position they would beat them and burn them with cigarettes. They attached electric wires to prisoners. They applied electroshock if victims began to collapse in exhaustion. The jolts of electricity made the hooded victims’ feet stick to the cans, contracted their muscles, and so forced them to stand up straight.”
So-called statue torture, often combined with sleep deprivation, was a favorite of the Portugese secret police in the 1960s. One prisoner reported being kept on his feet, awake, for six days. When he nodded off, he would be awakened by shaking, or having pins stuck in him. He became so sensitive to certain sounds that, long after the torture was over, he reported having auditory hallucinations.
Standing as Torture: It Never Goes out of Style
Standing as torture is not a thing of the past. Or at least, not a thing of the very distant past. Rejali reports that in the 1990s, prison guards in Miami’s Krome Detention Center made non-citizen detainees stand in line all day. Not for any purpose; just to stand.
But the most infamous recent examples come from the early 2000s, in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Again, I’ll quote Rejali:
Positional torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq involved the greatest variations. It included forcing prisoners to hold boxes and balance themselves on MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) boxes with arms extended. One military policeman (MP) attached wires to the fingers of hooded prisoners, warning them that they would receive electroshock if they ceased to stand. Prisoners were also handcuffed to rails, bunks, or doors of their cell and forced to stand or lie for long periods.
In December of 2002, Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo approving a number of torture (excuse me, I mean ”counter-resistance”) techniques for use in Guantanamo Bay. At the bottom, he included a handwritten comment, “However, I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
In 2003, General Ricardo Sanchez asked Rumsfeld to approve a similar set of techniques for use in Iraq. His memo includes this item:
Stress Positions: Use of physical postures (sitting, standing, kneeling, prone, etc.) for no more than 1 hour per use. Use of technique(s) will not exceed 4 hours and adequate rest between use of each position will be provided.
Although the techniques that were officially allowed changed somewhat over time, it’s not clear just how diligent interrogators were at staying inside the specified bounds.
Conclusion
After all this research, I’m torn over whether I should sympathize more with prisoners, contemplate my own victimhood, or just be grateful there were no tin cans or electrodes involved in my office work.
I do know this: The next time I have to stand in line at the Motor Vehicle Commission, I will definitely make a Gitmo comparison.
References
- Biderman, Albert D. 1957. “Communist Attempts to Elicity Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 33 (9): 616–625. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1806204/pdf/bullnyacadmed00378-0046.pdf.
- Central Intelligence Agency. 1963. “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation.” July.
- Haynes, William J. 2002. “Counter-Resistance Techniques.” November 27. Accessed May 24, 2021. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20021127-1.pdf.
- Hinkle, Lawrence E., and Harold G. Wolff. 1956. “Communist Interrogation and Indoctrination of “Enemies of the State”: Analysis of Methods Used by the Commuinist State Police (A Special Report).” CIA. Accessed May 24, 2021. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP65-00756R000400020008-8.pdf.
- Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First. 2007. “Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality.” Accessed May 24, 2021.
- Rejali, Darius. 2007. “Forced Standing and Other Positions.” Chap. 15 in Torture and Democracy, 316–333. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691143330.
- Rumsfeld, Donald. 2003. “MEMORANDUM FOR COMMANDER USSOUTHCOM.” Jan 15. Accessed May 24, 2021. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20030115-1.pdf.
- Sanchez, Ricardo S. 2003. “CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter Resistance Policy.” September 14. Accessed May 24, 2021. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20030914.pdf.
- Scarry, Elaine. 1987. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780195049961.
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