Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Heartbreaking: Club Gitmo Guests 'At Risk'

Just don't know how much more of this mental anguish I can take. I may just have to go buy another one of those world's smallest violins.
MORE than two-thirds of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison are suffering from or at risk of mental problems because they are kept isolated in small cells with little light or fresh air, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a report entitled 'Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo', the group says 185 of the 270 detainees at the US military prison for terrorism suspects are housed in facilities similar to "supermax" prisons.

They spend 22 hours alone in cramped cells, have very limited contact with other human beings and are given little more than the Koran to occupy themselves, said the report, which is based interviews with government officials and lawyers.

Detainees held in this manner include many who have not been charged with crimes and have already been cleared for release or transfer, according to the report.

"Guantanamo detainees who have not even been charged with a crime are being warehoused in conditions that are in many ways harsher than those reserved for the most dangerous, convicted criminals in the United States," said senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch Jennifer Daskal.
Don't worry, Jennifer, Barack Obama will make it all OK.

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