From the NY Times:
Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated Guantanamo detainees, the commander of the prison camps has instituted language classes, a literacy program and wants to open communal areas for men held in isolation 22 hours a day...
He wants to keep guards separate from the detainees but still enable them to check on each prisoner every three minutes to prevent suicides...
Right now the men in Camp 6 sit in steel boxes without windows for at least 22 hours a day...
Sounds nice. Men who have been in solitary confinement for 6 years without being charged with a crime can now learn a new language or discover the joys of reading. I have no doubt that at least a few of the 275 said to be imprisoned there are guilty of something, but they haven't been charged with anything. They haven't seen a judge. They haven't been allowed to contact their families or a lawyer. They may have been victims of "enhanced interrogation techniques"(forced to stand and remain awake for 40 hours or more, kept naked in a cold cell and had water thrown on them periodically to make sure they remain cold, made to feel as though they were drowning through water-boarding), and yet several hundred of them have been released after years without charge. So it seems that at least some of the people kept there have not been "evil doers." Maybe some of them will have an interesting story to tell when someone asks them where they learned English.
(photo from Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)
1 comment:
The only good arab is a dead arab.
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