A Day at Guantanamo as a Detainee

Imagine for a few moments how your life would change if you were suddenly charged as an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay as a detainee.

You'd be transported under conditions of sensory deprivation to maximize your disorientation.


Brooke Anderson, Flickr, Creative Commons


Carlos Ferrer, Flickr, Creative Commons


Carlos Ferrer, Flickr, Creative Commons

If you were really unlucky you'd end in Camp Delta.

Lorri 37, Flickr, Creative Commons

In any event there would be guard towers all around the place.

USMarine0311, Flickr, Creative Commons

You might be allowed to exercise, or maybe be gathered as a group in an enclosed pen.

ManilaRyce, Flickr, Creative Commons

Your day would not begin or end with regularity. From the LA Times the story continues:

It's a dreary winter afternoon, but the scene could be any time of the day or night. The hour for rec time is one of the few unpredictable features in a day in the life of a detainee.

Reveille is at 5 a.m., when guards collect the single bedsheet allotted to each detainee. That precaution has been in effect since June 2006, when three prisoners were found dead, hanging from nooses fashioned from their bedding.

When they do leave their cells, prisoners are shackled and escorted -- to and from showers, recreation pens, interrogation interviews, and a meeting or two each year with their lawyers. They leave their cells in the "hard facilities" of Camps 5, 6 and the new 7 for no other reason, unless they are found to need medical or dental treatment when corpsmen make periodic rounds.

Once a man has refused nine consecutive meals, he is considered a hunger striker and brought to the detention medical center. His head, arms and legs are strapped to a "restraint chair" while a tube is threaded through his nose and throat into the stomach. A doctor-recommended quantity of Ensure is administered.

Under those circumstances forced feeding is one more nice way of saying "torture." Put yourself in the prisoner's place and imagine the pain and distress of being strapped down and having a tube forced into your body.

A schoolroom was added to the predominantly Afghan camp last year to teach basic written Pashtu and Urdu to the illiterate.

Leather-and-steel shackles protrude from the floor beneath each desk where prisoners' ankles are tethered during classes.

mushroomandrooster, Flickr, Creative Commons

Lights are kept on in the cells 24/7 for what military jailers said were security reasons.

The full story has many more details than my excerpts. You should read the entire article. And put yourself in the place and time as you read. Then remember this is our nation at work. We, the citizens of the United States are represented by the actions of every day in Guantanamo. We cannot let this continue.


jemstaht, Flickr, Creative Commons

The United States needs to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay as soon as possible. All detainees deserve the right to a fair trial or release. We cannot continue to hold human beings in the conditions of Guantanamo if we as a nation hope to hold any measure of moral high ground.

Peace.