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Report Calls Guantanamo Conditions a Violation of Law

By possum

In direct disagreement with the recent Pentagon giving a green light to conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a report (.PDF) with an opposite conclusion.

After over seven years of unlawful executive detention, the approximately 240 men who remain imprisoned at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba continue to be held in inhumane conditions that violate U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution, and international human rights law. Most of these men have never been charged or had an opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention in a habeas hearing.

Under international laws governed by the Geneva Conventions, detainees are entitled to confinement under "humane" conditions.  President Obama has declared U.S. intention to abide by those very laws and rulings.  And yet conditions seem not to be changed.

Currently at Guantánamo, the majority of detainees are being held in conditions of solitary confinement in one of two super-maximum facilities - Camps 5 and 6 - or in Camp Echo. The conditions in these camps are harshly punitive and violate international and U.S. legal standards for the humane treatment of persons deprived of their liberty. Solitary confinement, sensory deprivation, environmental manipulation, and sleep deprivation are daily realities for these men and have led to the steady deterioration of their physical and psychological health.

In addition detainees are subject to handling in what often amounts to assault by teams of Immediate Reaction Force, the national equivalent of riot squads.  Detainees have been reported to be handled roughly by these teams in response to hunger strikes, yelling, and other relatively minor offenses.

Detainees have also been deprived of virtually all meaningful contact with their families, and have suffered interference with and abuse related to their right to practice their religion.

Contrary to statements by the military, conditions at Guantánamo have not improved for the majority of detainees and are still in violation of the law.

The descriptions of ongoing, severe solitary confinement, other forms of psychological abuse, incidents of violence and the threat of violence from guards, religious abuse, and widespread forced tube-feeding of hunger strikers indicate that the inhumane practices of the Bush Administration persist today at Guantánamo, despite President Obama's Executive Order.

Since 2002 CCR has coordinated attorney representation for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.  More than 500 pro bono attorneys are involved and have made more than 40 trips to the facility.  The findings of the report are based on the observations made by the attorneys and from reports coming from their client detainees.  

bodypolitic.org

Restrictions within the camps are severe and amount to at least the same level as any maximum security facility on the mainland.

At most, detainees are allowed no more than two to four hours in an outdoor cell a day, called
"recreation" time by the military. In Camp 6, this outdoor time occurs in a pen surrounded by
two-story high concrete walls with mesh wire across the top, blocking out most sunlight.

If guards determine that a detainee has committed any infraction, the detainee remains in lockdown in his cell and loses his recreation "privilege." Infractions can include failing to return a food tray promptly or cursing at a guard.

The detainees rarely have contact with other humans other than the gloved hands of their guards.  They have no contact with living creatures or plant life.  

fairgofordavid.org

The story of daily life for one detainee was written in 2007.

Alone, he rises at about five-thirty to wash (in the sink) and pray, then returns to his bed. Breakfast arrives through the hatch at about 7. He eats alone, then returns the trash through the hatch to the MPs. Sometimes he kneels and places his mouth to the small gap between door and floor and tries to shout a greeting. Then he sits on his bed for four to six hours. He tries to read the Koran. At mid-day he prays. He sits on the bed, waiting for lunch, which arrives at about one. He eats and returns the trash through the hatch. Then he sits on his bed for the afternoon, or paces. He converses with no one. He tries to read the Koran. He prays. Sometimes he hears voices in his head. When dinner arrives, he eats the dinner and returns the trash through the hatch. Then he sits on the bunk, or paces until evening prayer. He prays. He tries to sleep. He may hear the voices. He hears the banging of doors and the rumble of the HVAC [air-conditioning]. In the middle of the night, an MP raps on the door, asking if he wants "rec time." He says, "Just the shower." Half asleep, he stands at the door and is shackled. He is led to the shower area. On the way he peers into the doors on the pod [cell block], but at night the lights are off. He showers, and then is led back to the cell. He stands at the door while he is unshackled through the hatch. He returns to bed.

The next day, he repeats this, except that rec time occurs during the afternoon, and he participates in it.

According to the report very little has changed in the intervening two years.

ABC News

The report goes on to document the effects of sensory and sleep deprivation.

Items such as bed sheets are considered a privilege, and
linens are often removed as a disciplinary measure. Guards often kick the cell doors and the
sounds of guard activity loudly echo through the metal walls of Camps 5, 6 and Echo. Prisoners
are woken up as late as 2 a.m. for recreation time. Fluorescent lights are on in the cells in Camp 5 24 hours a day.

Hunger strikes and forced tube feeding continue to this day.

The men detained at Guantánamo have participated in on-going and widespread hunger strikes as a manner of protesting their ongoing detention and abusive treatment. Rather than bring their conditions and detention into compliance with basic standards for humane treatment and the rule of law, the government's response has been to restrain the men in chairs, force tubes down their noses and throats, and pump food into their stomachs.

www.cncmaps.com

In what may be the very worst news contained within the report is the apparent Obama administration adherence to the Bush administration posture of sanitizing the truth of conditions in Guantanamo.

In late January and early February 2009, the military command overseeing the base responded to
President Obama's executive order requiring a review of conditions at the base by instituting
minor changes that fail to address the fundamental inhumanity of this facility. In Camp 6, for example, a new weekly "movie night" is now offered, where small groups of men have the
"privilege" to be chained to a table to view a movie.39 A communal outdoor "recreation" cage
surrounded by two-story concrete walls has reportedly been created for compliant men to have
"recreation" together for a few hours. Not only are these new policies or procedures unsatisfactory on paper, but their implementation disregards fundamental harms wrought by the
overall isolation, psychological stress, and threat of physical violence that permeates the lives of men detained in Camp 6.

Camp 5 has had not even these minimum changes implemented.

This effort to whitewash Camp 6 and to deny the abusive conditions of confinement at
Guantánamo is reminiscent of the military command's attempt in July and August of 2004 to
"improve" the isolation huts in Camp Echo prior to the first meeting between detainees and a
civilian attorney,

The report ends with CCR recommendations.

1)  End solitary confinement and close Camps 5, 6 and Echo.
2)  End religious abuse of detainees.
3)  End physical and psychological abuse of detainees and end the use of the Immediate
Reaction Force (IRF).
4)  End the feeding of individuals against their will or under coercive circumstances. For individuals who freely and knowingly consent to artificial feeding, provide them with artificial feeding procedures that are medically appropriate, ethical, and humane.
50  Allow detainees immediate access to independent medical and psychological professionals and cease the practice of forcible medication of detainees.
6)  Cease illegal interrogations.
7)  Allow access to detainees by independent domestic and international human rights observers.

Peace.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).