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Thursday, April 5, 2007
Who Do You Believe?
Amnesty International on Gitmo's new facility: Built to accommodate around 178 detainees, the compound known as Camp 6 is surrounded by high concrete walls with no windows visible on the façade. Inside, detainees are confined for a minimum of 22 hours a day in individual steel cells with no windows to the outside. The only view from each cell is through strips of glass only a few inches wide in and adjacent to the cell door which looks onto an interior corridor patrolled by military police. There are no opening windows and detainees are completely cut-off from human contact while inside their cells...
Contrary to international standards, the cells have no access to natural light or air, and are lit by fluorescent lighting which is on 24 hours a day and controlled by guards. The lighting is reportedly dimmed at night, although it is unclear by how much. The only source of air in the cells is from air-conditioning controlled by guards. Lawyers who visited detainees in January 2007 reported that they consistently complained of being too cold in the steel cells, with the air-conditioning turned up too high.
The Defense Department on Gitmo's new facility: Camp 6, which became operational in December and cost $38 million to build, now houses roughly 160 of the 395 or so detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, said in an interview here today. The air-conditioned facility, modeled on the most modern and efficient prisons in the United States, is more comfortable for detainees. It allows them to have more room and privacy than earlier facilities used at Guantanamo and is similar to Camp 5, another modern facility built in 2004. “It’s much better across the board than the facilities from which they came,” Harris said of Camp 6.
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