Guantanamo - any justification?

Well, it can't be all bad. They do get to play with dogs.

Legal limbo of Guantanamo's prisoners

By Monica Whitlock
BBC correspondent in Kabul

With the arrival of 30 new detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the United States is now holding more prisoners there than ever before.

Most of the new intake are Afghans, captured during the US campaign
against the Taleban in 2001 and 2002, and held in Afghanistan ever since
without charge.

Said Abaseen is a taxi driver from the Afghan capital, Kabul.
He set out on an ordinary day's work last July - and ended up in
Cuba, 15,000 kilometres (9,300 miles) from home.
He was held at Guantanamo Bay for nine months, before being
classified as of low intelligence value and sent back to Kabul in
March - part of the first substantial group to be set free.
He was never charged and still does not know why he was arrested.
Nobody knows exactly who is being held, but the US Government says
there are roughly 660 people currently detained at Guantanamo Bay,
from over 40 countries.
Two weeks ago, US defence department officials announced that they
had three children between the ages of 13 and 15 detained at Guantanamo.


'Unlawful combatants'

A hunger strike, last year, and a string of suicide attempts drew
attention to conditions in Guantanamo.
Since those early months, much has changed at the camp.
Prisoners have been moved out of the steel-mesh cages of the first
makeshift camp - called Camp X-ray - into solid buildings.
Wendy Patten of Human Rights Watch says that the prisoners are now
living in "Camp Delta", a facility which has plumbing and ventilation.
"It's apparently being used for those who are beginning to prepare to
complete their detention and move them on to release.

" We understand they're allowed out a couple of times a week for
exercise."
The Red Cross ensures that prisoners are allowed to write to their
families, and the children in the camp are given some lessons.
But Human Rights Watch is continuing to insist the US Government
respects the human rights of their prisoners.

Yet US officials insist that there is nothing inhumane or degrading
in the prisoners' treatment.
Donald Rumsfeld, uses the term "unlawful combatants" to describe
the detainees at Guantanamo:

"As I understand it, technically unlawful combatants do not have
any rights under the Geneva Conventions."
This means that the prisoners do not need to be released at
the end of hostilities - as prisoners of war are.
Under this classification, the prisoners are not charged, but nor
are they allowed access to any legal process.
Military tribunals
British lawyers, such as Louise Christian, are doing what they can
to help some of the prisoners.
But as they cannot meet with their clients, they have to represent
their families, with whom the inmates communicate by letter.
Like other lawyers, she has found her work thwarted by a legal
maze within a maze.

Guantanamo Bay is on a perpetual lease, granted in 1901, from the Cuban Government.

And because these are non-US citizens on non-sovereign US territory,
that means that the US courts do not have jurisdiction.
The conundrum of Guantanamo may, however, be opening up a little.
Last month, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, wrote a strongly
worded letter to Donald Rumsfeld, deploring the imprisonment of children
and old people, and saying that eight governments friendly to the US had
complained about the holding of their citizens.
Guantanamo, he said, could undermine US efforts to sustain international
approval for its foreign policy.
Nothing definite has been announced, but the word in Washington is that
some prisoners will go before military tribunals in the months to come.
And these tribunals will have the power to impose the death penalty.
It will, it is said, be up to President Bush to decide on any executions.

I really find this pretty incredible.

Not only incredible but totally reprehensible! Who the hell does that administration think they are? Nine months?!!! What the heck was his family doing for food and money all that time? That's unconscionable.

I also read a story about a reporter who worked for Al-Jazeera who has been imprisoned for 5 or 6 years in guantanamo, with charges vague and shifting. He was first accused of smuggling rockets, now he's being accused of laundering money. He has a son who is now 7 whom he hasn't seen since he was imprisoned. During this time he had been interrogated 130 times. He had been offered release in exchange for working as a 'spy' for the American government.

I'm sorry I couldn't find this article in english, I'll keep trying.

You don't need to find it for me - I believe you and anyway, I can't stand reading this kind of stuff. Makes me sick and mad and helpless.