Conditions at Guantánamo Under Scrutiny

Last week, the Associated Press reported that officials at Guantánamo, stung by lawyers’ criticism of conditions in a disciplinary block known as “Five Echo,” had fought back against claims that the cells are too small to be regarded as humane, that the toilets are inadequate, the lights are too bright and the air in the cells is foul.

A photo released to the AP showed what appeared to be a claustrophobically tiny cell, and a military spokesman conceded that the cells in “Five Echo” are only half the size of the cells in the nearby Camp Five, and also “have a squat toilet in the floor, instead of a standard prison toilet found elsewhere in the prison.”

David Remes, an attorney in Washington D.C., who represents three men who have been held in “Five Echo,” described the camp as violating the Geneva Conventions, and called it “a throwback to the bad old days at Guantánamo.”

Some of those still held might dispute the inference that these are the “good old days,” when the 171 men still held are, for the most part, detained without charge or trial, in a facility that still reflects the Bush administration’s arrogant disregard for the law, however much the Obama administration may have tweaked conditions to allow prisoners regarded as cooperative to spend some of their time socializing, and, occasionally, allowing them to talk on the phone to their families.

The remaining prisoners are still not allowed family visits, unlike those convicted of the most horrendous crimes and held in prisons on the US mainland, and although the Obama administration has conceded that it wishes to release or does not wish to permanently detain 89 of the remaining 171 prisoners, they are effectively indistinguishable from the 82 others — recommended for trials or for indefinite detention with periodic reviews — because of obstruction by Congress, by the administration itself, and by the courts, which have made releasing any of these men almost impossible.

Lawmakers have specifically prevented the release of any prisoner unless the defense secretary signs a waiver indicating that there is no chance that any freed individual will be able engage in any act of recidivism — a condition recently described by Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s senior lawyer, as “onerous and near impossible to satisfy.”

In addition, 58 Yemenis are still held because of an unprincipled moratorium on releasing any Yemenis that was introduced by President Obama in January 2010, after it was discovered that the failed Christmas 2009 plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been recruited in Yemen, and the D.C. Circuit Court has rewritten the rules of detention on ideological grounds, bringing the law into disrepute, but also ensuring that no prisoner can leave through having their habeas corpus petitions granted by the lower courts.

For those still held, Guantánamo is, therefore, closer to being the black hole conceived by the Bush administration than any other prison, where inmates are sentenced, and are released at the end of their sentences, or, if they are to be held for the rest of their lives, are, at least, told by a judge that they will be serving life without parole.

Even so, and with the proviso that the whole of Guantánamo still constitutes a uniquely disturbing example of arbitrary, indefinite detention, conditions in “Five Echo” do appear to be noticeably worse, in terms of discomfort, than conditions in general in Guantánamo. Officials claimed that, as a punishment block, it was “by its nature a worse place to be imprisoned than in the communal blocks where most detainees at Guantánamo are now held,” but they disputed the claim that it violated the Geneva Conventions. Army Col. Donnie Thomas, the commander of the guard force, said, “It is safe, humane and meets all the regulations” — although military spokespeople always say that.

Lawyers told the AP that “they did not believe any photos of the unit had been released previously,” and that the military had been “secretive” about “Five Echo,” which “was created in 2007 as an overflow disciplinary section,” but now, according to Col. Thomas, is used as an “extension” of Camp Five.” It was also noted that it “has not been included in media tours.”

Camp Five is a maximum-security block, modeled on the Miami Correctional Facility, a state prison in Bunker Hill, Indiana. It opened in May 2004, and its solid-walled cells once housed up to a hundred prisoners regarded as having the “greatest intelligence value,” according to a report in the Miami Herald. Now, however, the block only holds 25 prisoners at most, including, in a top tier block, described by the Herald as a “Convicts Corridor,” segregating the four prisoners (including the Canadian, and former child prisoner Omar Khadr), who have been convicted of war crimes — or have agreed to plea deals — in their trials by Military Commission. The AP explained that Camp Five was “now largely used for detainees who attack a guard or otherwise violate the rules,” and those who are regarded as “noncompliant.”

The identities of the prisoners held in Camp Five were not disclosed, although it is probable that they include up to a dozen men, regarded by the authorities as significant prisoners, capable of influencing their fellow prisoners, who were previously held in a special section in Camp Delta (where Camps One to Three were, but which is now closed), called “One-Alpha.” Col. Thomas seemed to indicate this when he said, “Quite frankly, detainees make the determination where they live. If they are compliant they live in Camp Six. If they are noncompliant they live in Camp Five.”

In contrast to Camp Five, Camp Six, which opened in December 2006, and was also modeled on a maximum-security facility in Lenawee County, Michigan, holds the majority of the remaining 171 prisoners, and has, since August 2010, been the block where prisoners are allowed to socialize, “with up to 20 hours a day of TV or radio broadcast through headsets,” as the Miami Herald described it, adding that “each of the 22-cell pods was organized according to broadcast preference with two pods having exclusively Quranic radio broadcasts from Saudi Arabia,” and another “made up predominantly of Yemeni soccer fans who dominated in matches in the communal recreation yard.”

The AP noted that the prisoners in Camp Six are “free to congregate with each other in a communal setting for 20 hours a day, and they have access to games, classes and 20 channels of cable television,” and also noted that the authorities claimed that the creation of the communal facilities was responsible for “a sharp drop in prisoners’ protests, hunger strikes and assaults on guards.”

Discussing “Five Echo,” Col. Thomas “declined to disclose the criteria” for its use, but said it was empty last week, although “he could resume using it at any time at his discretion.” He refused to say when it had last held prisoners, but David Remes explained that it had recently held Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who he represents, and who is one of the dozen or so prisoners regarded as being particularly influential. He stated that he “drew a diagram” of the cells, and “collected other details” following a meeting with Aamer, but “the notes were deemed classified by a government review team and he is not permitted to release them.”

Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer and a law professor at the City University of New York, who also represents Aamer, said he had described “abysmal conditions” in “Five Echo,” explaining that “the squat toilet is difficult to use, there are foul odors, bright lights shine on detainees and air conditioners keep it extremely cold.” Kassem said, “It is decrepit, filthy and disgusting. Those are the words he used to describe it.” He added that Aamer also told him the cells were not large enough to allow prisoners to pray, and said that the conditions were “akin to those of a Supermax prison in the United States.”

Explaining the circumstances in which the other prisoners are held, the Miami Herald noted that 15 or 16 “high-value detainees,” previously held in secret CIA prisons, where the use of torture was routine, are held in Camp Seven, which the media has never been allowed to visit, and that five Uighurs (Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province, who are awaiting an offer of a new home) are held in Camp Iguana, once used for three child prisoners, where they “can get greater privileges, including more phone calls, a prayer room, a Wii and a view of the Caribbean.”

No figures have been made available regarding the number of prisoners held in the Behavioral Health Unit, adjacent to the hospital, which “serves as the psychiatric ward for mentally ill or otherwise troubled detainees,” although it seems certain that it must be used to house some prisoners whose long detention has led to their complete mental collapse. The Miami Herald also noted, troublingly, that between three and five prisoners live “permanently” in Camp Echo “for reasons the military will not explain.”

A 24-cell block, Camp Echo is used for meetings between lawyers and their clients, but its cells were used in 2003-04 to hold prisoners in total isolation who were facing Military Commission trials, and it is also known that Shaker Aamer was held there for 18 months in total isolation from September 2005 to March 2007. For Camp Echo still to be used for detention, and for no explanation of its use to have been provided, is therefore genuinely disturbing.

On this basis, the conditions in “Five Echo” are just one small part of the problems — particularly involving indefinite detention, and the “hidden” prisoners in Camp Echo, Camp Five and Camp Seven — facing those still held in Guantánamo as the 10th anniversary of the opening of the prison approaches, on January 11, 2012.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

As published exclusively on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation.