Guantanamo conditions 'deteriorate'

[ensho]

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/11/200911591532756392.html


On the night that Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, 21-year-old Mohammed el Gharani was sitting in a segregation cell in Guantanamo Bay's high security Echo Block.

He remembers the excitement among his fellow prisoners at the prospect of an Obama presidency. "Everyone was very hopeful; people were saying he was going to change things, that he would close the prison," Gharani, who was released in June, says.

"Even the guards were telling us that if he won, things would improve for us."

They were to be disappointed. A year after Obama's election win, Al Jazeera has learnt that despite the new president's pledge to close the prison and improve the conditions of detainees held by the US military, prisoners believe that their treatment has deteriorated on his watch.

Authorities at the prison deny mistreating the inmates, but interviews with former detainees, letters from current prisoners and sworn testimony from independent medical experts who have visited the prison have painted a disturbing picture of psychological and physical abuse very much at odds with White House rhetoric on prisoner treatment.

-snip-

Within days of Obama's inauguration and subsequent announcement that he would close Guantanamo, prisoners say authorities introduced new regulations and revoked previous privileges at the prison.

"They took away group recreation for prisoners in segregation, which was the only time we saw anyone," Gharani remembers. "They took away the books we had from the library. They even sprayed pepper spray into my cell while I was sleeping, so I'd wake up unable to breathe."

Gharani says he was beaten so badly by guards that he is still suffering pain today.
-long snip-
--------------------------


what the hell? is Obama afraid of our military officers? who has Obama's back while he fights the Brass? anybody?

[tekisui]

1. And, Bagram expands.

[gateley]

4. OT --

I'm sorry but I can't see/discern who your new avatar is (either lousy monitor, or I'm just clueless. Probably both.) Enlighten me?

[tekisui]

5. Thich Naht Hanh

And, it was this poem that inspired the change to his avatar:

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I like the way the poem embodies the idea that not only are we all connected, but we are all suffering and inflicting pain. We are all the good and bad in this world. Ownership of it all is a helpful perspective in discerning 'right' from 'wrong', IMO.:hi:

[gateley]

6. Wow. That's moving and thought/emotion provoking.

I think I've read some (or one) of his books a few years back. Think I'll go dig them out.

Thanks for sharing this. Good choice, friend. :pal:

[gateley]

2. WTF. I can understand that there may have been complications

in actually closing the base when Obama wanted, but what on earth prevents us from treating those being held more compassionately? Why on earth implement NEW restrictions??

Very very upsetting.

WHO, in Obama's adminstration, is holding the reins on Gtmo, do you know?

[Warpy]

3. I'm not surprised at this

because the prison guards probably thought they'd be going home, too. They are likely taking their own disappointment out on the prisoners whether or not they have the insight to realize it.

Didn't Congress override Obama on shutting that place down immediately?

Also, isn't it due to be shut down several months from now, as soon as every prisoner is assigned a specific facility?