X-rays of Guantanamo Bay - Currents - Brief Article

New Internationalist, July, 2003 by Chris Richards

The US has still not disclosed the identity or even the number of people it is holding for interrogation about terrorist links at its naval base in Guantanomo Bay, Cuba. And while reports estimate that as many as 660 people from 42 countries -- including three juveniles (one as young as 13 years) -- have now been detained at Camp X-ray for over 17 months, there are no official figures.

Stephen Kenny, the lawyer for accused Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks, says reports of up to 30 suicide attempts by detainees at the camp in recent months do not surprise him because of the conditions there: incarceration in wire cages with as little as 15 minutes of exercise twice a week, Despite the use by the US of 'stress and duress' torture (a combination of sleep deprivation and sensory overload) that it claims no-one can survive for more than three months without telling the truth, none of the detainees has yet been charged. By officially designating the prisoners 'unlawful combatants' and not prisoners of war, th e US says it will hold the detainees on an indefinite basis without trial and be under no obligation to accord them protections available under the Geneva Convention. Amnesty International has asked the US either to charge the prisoners formally or to release them.