At Guantanamo:
...commanders, grappling with despair among long-held detainees facing neither trial nor charge, are building barrack-like compounds for some prisoners as part of a reward system for cooperation with their captors. More than 600 prisoners from 43 countries are now held in 7-by-8-foot cagelike cells. An undisclosed number of them are under suicide watch. Others, considered troublemakers, are held in 7-by-8 solitary confinement cells with steel plates instead of wire mesh for walls. Under the new arrangement, some prisoners will be allowed to share common sleeping, eating and washing quarters and pray in groups of up to 20.
The issue of suicide attempts at the base has been steeped in secrecy. Medical personnel at one point last year reported that dozens of prisoners had tried to kill themselves. McWilliams later said fewer than a dozen episodes fit the strict definition of a suicide attempt and that others qualified as ``self-harm incidents.''
Miami Herald, 2/3/03
centredaily.com
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As long as the prisoners never touch US soil - and the naval base is not considered part of the US - they are denied the rights guaranteed to criminals under the American constitution, such as a presumption of innocence and a trial by jury. Washington has indicated that prisoners may be tried by military tribunal, and the sentences could include the death penalty
guardian.co.uk
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The Bush administration is still holding some 650 prisoners on Guantanamo Bay without charging them, and with no immediate plans to let them go.
The White House refuses to classify them as prisoners of war or give them a trial. As well as large numbers of Afghans and Pakistanis, there are Britons and Australians at the camp.
Conditions at the prison are grim. The detainees have no access to families or lawyers and they are only allowed out of their tiny cells for two 15-minute exercise breaks every week.
During the past year they have been moved from the makeshift Camp X-Ray to Camp Delta. In their new camp they do at least have flushing toilets, but the isolation is even more rigorous.
A very few have been released from the island. Last October three Afghans were sent home. The US said they were just farmers who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
1/11/2003 BBC news
news.bbc.co.uk
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There is no indication when the inmates will either be charged or freed but one official did say the intention was to hold them until the war on terrorism was over.
news.bbc.co.uk
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A typical day for an Al Qaeda suspect begins just before dawn with the call to prayer. Breakfast at 6:30 a.m. is served to each prisoner in his cell on paper plates passed through a slot in the cell door. The menu: oatmeal, an orange, fresh bread, and a bottle of water.
The center of every detainee's universe is an eight-foot-by-eight-foot slab of concrete enclosed by walls and ceiling of chain-link fencing. Among the variety of activities prisoners engage in in their cells: standing, sitting, squatting, lying down, pacing, reading the Koran, talking to their neighbors, and sleeping.
"They spend the vast majority of their day inside those units," says Marine Maj. Stephen Cox. "Their activity is not that much different than inmates in a maximum-security prison."
From 7:30 to noon, the prisoners may be involved in any one of four different activities outside their cells: showering, sick call, recreation, or interrogation.
Each detainee is required to bathe at least once every two days. This is more challenging than it sounds, since prisoners must first master the art of scrubbing and shampooing with both hands still shackled together.
Whenever a prisoner leaves his cell, his wrists and ankles must be shackled. The wrist cuffs are attached to a belt at the waist to prevent any swinging of both arms together (although this waist restraint is removed at shower time). Any prisoner outside his cell is escorted by at least two guards.
While in the recreation area near the center of the camp, prisoners have 15 minutes outside their cells during which their leg shackles are removed. There are no recreation facilities or sports equipment. No soccer balls, Ping-Pong tables, lawn darts, croquet mallets. Instead, prisoners have the option of either standing still, walking, or jogging, all with their wrists still shackled. Prisoners are scheduled for two 15-minute recreation experiences per week.
csmonitor.com
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The U.S. selective-enforcement policy toward the Geneva Conventions still stirs criticism among international and American human-rights advocates. Without case-by-case consideration of whether each prisoner here is a POW, the critics say, the Pentagon is simply paying lip service to the Geneva Conventions.
Further, they argue, as Washington edges toward war on Saddam Hussein, the United States has lost a measure of moral authority to argue for POW privileges if an American soldier is captured in an invasion of Iraq.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as Mary Robinson, the just-departed U.N. high commissioner for human rights, have all urged the United States to lift what they call a state of ''legal limbo'' from the captives from 43 countries.
Miami Herald 9/15/02
miami.com |
