A federal judge has ordered the US military to release photographs of detainees being abused in Iraq and Afghanistan . U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein 's ruling on Friday gives the government , which has fought the case for over a decade , two months to decide whether to appeal before the photos could be released . The American Civil Liberties Union has been seeking to make them public in the name of holding government accountable . The fight over the photographs reaches back to the early years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , and it invokes the images of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that sparked international outrage after they emerged in 2004 and 2006 . This image shows an unidentified detainee standing on a box with a bag on his head and wires attached to him at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad . A federal judge has ordered that more pictures of inmate abuse must be shared by the US military . 'To allow the government to suppress any image that might provoke someone , somewhere , to violence would be to give the government sweeping power to suppress evidence of its own agents ' misconduct , ' said Jameel Jaffer , ACLU deputy legal director . 'Giving the government that kind of censorial power would have implications far beyond this specific context . ' The Defense Department is studying the ruling and will make any further responses in court , spokesman Lt. Col. Myles Caggins III said . Early in the 2004 lawsuit , the ACLU pointed to the Abu Ghraib photos as priority examples of records the organization was seeking on the treatment of detainees . It 's unclear how many more photographs may exist . The government has said it has 29 relevant pictures from at least seven different sites in Afghanistan and Iraq , and it 's believed to have perhaps hundreds or thousands more , Hellerstein said in a ruling in August . He said some photos he had seen 'are relatively innocuous while others need more serious consideration , ' and he has ruled that any images that would be released would be redacted to protect the identities of people in them . Some photographs , taken by service members in Iraq and Afghanistan , were part of criminal investigations of alleged abuse . Some images show 'soldiers pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees , ' then-Solicitor General — now Supreme Court Justice — Elena Kagan wrote in an appeal to the high court earlier in the case , which has taken a long road through the courts and Congress . The fight over the photographs reaches back to the early years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , and it invokes the images of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ( inside pictured ) that sparked international outrage after they emerged in 2004 and 2006 . The government has long argued that releasing the photographs could incite attacks against U.S. forces and government personnel abroad , and officials have said that risk has n't abated as the U.S. military role in Iraq and Afghanistan lessened . Indeed , 'the danger associated with release of these photographs is heightened now , ' amid the rise of the Islamic State militant group , Navy Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris , the vice director for operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff , said in a December court filing . Islamic State , he said 'would use these photographs to further encourage its supporters and followers to attack U.S. military and government personnel . ' Amid the lawsuit , Congress passed a 2009 law allowing the government to keep the photos secret if the secretary of defense certified that unveiling them would endanger U.S. citizens or government or military personnel . Defense secretaries have since done so , but Hellerstein said the government has n't been specific enough .
Follows a long-running clash concerning how prisoners were treated . The government has fought the case for more than a decade . Images from Navy Rear Adm. prison in Baghdad sparked outrage in 2004 . They now have two months to decide whether to appeal the ruling .