secret prison
Hidden detention facility
A secret prison is a detention facility whose existence or location is concealed from the public and often from legal oversight.
Governments operate secret prisons to hold prisoners outside normal legal protections—for interrogation, indefinite detention, or torture.
The term gained prominence after revelations of CIA "black sites" used in the war on terror: Detainees were held in secret prisons across multiple countries.
- black siteSecret extrajudicial detention facility
- black opsUnacknowledged covert activities
- detentionTemporary official holding
- interrogationFormal, probing examination
- enhanced interrogationEuphemism for abusive questioning
torture · gulag · rendition · war on terror · clandestine · dungeon · captive · shackles · cell · waterboarding · Abu Ghraib · CIA · disappeared · covert · facility · offshore · off the grid · incarceration
- detentionjail, detention centers, captive, detention orders, captivity
- political violenceassassination, targeted killing, insurrection, summary execution, state terror
secret prisonstate penitentiary
Government-run facility for serious offenders
secret prisonfreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · open society · free world · liberation · sanctuary
secret, prison, secrets, secrete, secretive, secretively, secretiveness, secretion, secretary