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US Increases Embassy Security Amid CIA Interrogations Report Release

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The US State Department is increasing the security at some of its embassies, fearing that the release of the US Senate report on harsh CIA interrogation techniques could trigger mass protests, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing US officials.

MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – The US State Department is increasing the security at some of its embassies, fearing that the release of the US Senate report on harsh CIA interrogation techniques could trigger mass protests, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing US officials.

The officials fear that protests could start in countries where the CIA operated secret prisons used to conduct interrogations. For security reasons, officials did not reveal the list of embassies affected by additional security measures.

According to Reuters, US President Barack Obama’s administration also fears that foreign security agencies might stop cooperating with the United States as a result of the report.

It is expected that only 700 of the report’s 6,800 pages will be declassified, with the other pages to remain secret indefinitely.

Earlier on Tuesday, the US Senate’s intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said that the report’s release would be delayed because of additional editing.

Senators in the committee have indicated that the report is critical of the CIA's treatment of terrorism suspects, saying it amounted to torture, something CIA officials have denied. It also stated that those techniques did not help in fighting terrorism.

Former CIA director Leon Edward Panetta, who laid out a number of concerns about the agency’s operations including whether the interrogations were producing valuable information, initiated an investigation into the CIA’s activities.

Enhanced interrogation techniques were approved by former US President George W. Bush’s administration and included the harsh treatment of detainees at different sites around the world, including Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

During the Iraq War, the US Army and the CIA personnel tortured, abused, raped, sodomized and even killed Abu Ghraib prisoners. Pictures from the prison published in newspapers around the world forced Bush to publically apologize.

There are various known cases of torture of Guantanamo prisoners, which have been condemned by international organizations and human rights groups.

According to ABC News, interrogation techniques used by the CIA involved simulated drowning, hypothermia and sleep deprivation among others.

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