Conditions
For Guantánamo
Prisoners Worsening
By Tom Carter
10 April, 2007
World
Socialist Web
A
report released Thursday by Amnesty International (AI) describes “deteriorating”
conditions at the infamous Guantánamo Bay, Cuba prison camp,
citing an increase in the use of physical isolation to break prisoners,
and an accompanying rise in mental health problems. The human rights
group’s report calls for the immediate closure of the camp and
affirms the right of victims to pursue reparations in US courts.
The report, “Cruel
and Inhuman: Conditions of isolation for detainees at Guantánamo
Bay,” dismisses assurances from US authorities that Guantánamo
detainees are being treated “humanely” and afforded “high
quality” medical care. The report draws a parallel between the
inhuman conditions at Guantánamo and the conditions at “super-maximum”
prisons operated inside the United States.
According to AI, the Guantánamo
prison currently houses 385 men from around 30 countries. These prisoners,
many of whom have been incarcerated for more than five years, are being
denied all rights associated with US and international law. None have
had their cases reviewed by any legitimate court, and are being held
in violation of fundamental democratic principles.
In December 2006, according
to the report, a facility dubbed “Camp 6” was opened in
Guantánamo. Camp 6, which now houses about 165 individuals, “created
even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation
and sensory deprivation in which detainees are confined to almost completely
sealed, individual cells, with minimal contact with any other human
being.”
AI describes Camp 6 as a
compound “surrounded by high concrete walls with no windows visible
on the façade.”
The prisoners “are
confined for a minimum of 22 hours a day in individual steel cells with
no windows to the outside. The only view from each cell is through strips
of glass only a few inches wide in and adjacent to the cell door which
looks onto an interior corridor patrolled by military police. There
are no opening windows and detainees are completely cut off from human
contact while inside their cells.”
Inmates are denied access
to natural light and air; are not permitted to read the news, watch
TV, or otherwise have any connection to the outside world; are not permitted
to speak with other inmates; are denied pens, paper, watches, and most
other basic items; are shackled whenever outside their cell; and are
allowed only two hours of exercise a day.
Every effort is made to humiliate,
isolate, disorient and otherwise break the prisoners. Bright fluorescent
lights are kept on in the cells for 24 hours a day, temperatures are
kept uncomfortably low, and female prison guards observe inmates while
they shower and use the toilet. Letters from family and friends are
delayed and heavily redacted, and access to legal counsel is severely
restricted.
The report estimates that
as many as 80 percent of Guantánamo inmates are held in conditions
of extreme isolation, which are being used as an “interrogation
technique or as punishment” in violation of international law.
The impact of extreme isolation,
sensory deprivation and prolonged inactivity on the mental health of
a human being is catastrophic. Mental health experts cited in the AI
report described symptoms including “perpetual distortions and
hallucinations, extreme anxiety, hostility, confusion, difficulty with
concentration, hyper-sensitivity to external stimuli, and sleep disturbance
...”
The report warned that many
inmates are “dangerously close to full-blown mental and physical
breakdown.”
The AI report cites the observations
of lawyers who had visited clients before and after they were subjected
to the regime described above.
“A document describing
the impact on five Uighurs [an oppressed ethnic minority in China] of
their transfer to Camp 6 states how they all expressed feelings of ‘despair,
crushing loneliness, and abandonment by the world’ during visits
with their lawyers in January 2007. None had been subjected to such
strict conditions of isolation before. One detainee who during previous
visits ‘had appeared gentle and pleasant, quick to laugh and smile,’
now ‘appeared to be in despair’ and said he was ‘beginning
to hear voices.’ Another described how his cell neighbour was
‘constantly hearing voices, shouting out, and being punished.’”
In another account, a lawyer
representing three other men wrote “that they had been ‘remarkably
psychologically strong’ and hopeful during a visit in October
but two had later been transferred to Camp 6 and one to Camp 5. During
a visit to Camp 6 in January 2007 one of the men who had been vulnerable
but bearing up well before was now ‘visibly shaken and in great
despair’; he had reportedly not seen daylight in 15 days.”
One inmate cited in the report
described Camp 6 as a “dungeon above ground.” US authorities
defended the new facility on the grounds that it affords detainees more
“privacy.”
More than 40 attempted suicides
have been reported at Guantánamo, including the three widely-reported
deaths in June of 2006. Numerous separate group hunger strikes over
the past five years met brutal repression from the prison authorities.
According to the report, inmates on hunger strike “were being
force fed through nasal tubes, some while strapped to restraint chairs
... detainees have described being subjected to considerable pain as
the tubes were inserted into their nostrils.
“One detainee reported
how, three times, the tube had been inserted the wrong way so that it
went into his lungs; he said he frequently vomited after being force-fed
and was not given clean clothes. Guards have allegedly subjected hunger-striking
detainees in one block to further punitive treatment, such as pepper
spraying them or turning the air-conditioning up high.”
According to the Military
Commissions Act, passed with the help of the congressional Democrats
in October 2006, these men are outside the protection of US and international
law, and have no rights to appeal their treatment in US federal court.
That particular provision was upheld Monday by the US Supreme Court,
when the court refused to hear habeas corpus petitions from two groups
of Guantánamo prisoners.
The Guantánamo prison
camp has become an international symbol of the consequences of the attacks
on fundamental democratic rights associated with the so-called “war
on terror” being waged by the United States. At times, even President
Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in the face of popular outrage,
have hinted that they would prefer to shut the base down. This week’s
AI report makes clear, however, that Guantánamo is presently
being expanded.
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