T
theloneranger100@aol.com
Guest
Yup......At "Club Gitmo", Detainees can now spend their Relaxing Hours
Gardening Vegetables........How QUAINT!..........
"Some Guantanamo Inmates Able to Garden
March 10, 2007, 5:00 PM EST
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A select group of detainees at the U.S.
prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been allowed to garden for the
first time, a military spokesman said.
Prisoners in Camp 4, which holds the "most compliant" detainees,
started growing tomatoes several weeks ago in concrete soil-filled
planters, Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said.
The military allowed the plants -- and provided plastic gardening
tools, watering cans and seeds -- at the request of lawyers for
detainees, Durand said Friday in an e-mail response to questions about
the activity.
Gardening is intended to "provide intellectual stimulation" to
prisoners, Durand said, comparing it to the military's detainee
library and literacy programs in Arabic and Pashto, a language spoken
mainly in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Camp 4 holds about 35 detainees, who are allowed to spend time
together, spend 12 to 14 hours a day outside, eat communally and live
in barracks-style housing.
Only those who have "demonstrated long-term compliance with camp
rules," are permitted to live in Camp 4, Durand said.
In all, Guantanamo holds about 385 prisoners on suspicion of links to
al-Qaida or the Taliban. Most are held in one-person cells, eat alone
and have only limited outdoor recreation.
Lawyers said they appreciated the decision to allow Camp 4 detainees
to garden.
"This is welcome news and one small but important step toward sanity,"
said Sabin Willett, an attorney who represents ethnic Uighurs from
western China held at Guantanamo.
Willett said gardens have traditionally been allowed in prisoner-of-
war camps and even U.S. Army regulations require that "men held in
prolonged imprisonment must be given some useful and creative thing to
do."
Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney with the British human rights group
Reprieve, said he asked the military last year to allow gardening and
had begun collecting donated seeds. He learned the gardening had been
authorized during a visit to the prison last week. "It's a small step
forward," he said. "
Gardening Vegetables........How QUAINT!..........
"Some Guantanamo Inmates Able to Garden
March 10, 2007, 5:00 PM EST
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A select group of detainees at the U.S.
prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been allowed to garden for the
first time, a military spokesman said.
Prisoners in Camp 4, which holds the "most compliant" detainees,
started growing tomatoes several weeks ago in concrete soil-filled
planters, Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said.
The military allowed the plants -- and provided plastic gardening
tools, watering cans and seeds -- at the request of lawyers for
detainees, Durand said Friday in an e-mail response to questions about
the activity.
Gardening is intended to "provide intellectual stimulation" to
prisoners, Durand said, comparing it to the military's detainee
library and literacy programs in Arabic and Pashto, a language spoken
mainly in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Camp 4 holds about 35 detainees, who are allowed to spend time
together, spend 12 to 14 hours a day outside, eat communally and live
in barracks-style housing.
Only those who have "demonstrated long-term compliance with camp
rules," are permitted to live in Camp 4, Durand said.
In all, Guantanamo holds about 385 prisoners on suspicion of links to
al-Qaida or the Taliban. Most are held in one-person cells, eat alone
and have only limited outdoor recreation.
Lawyers said they appreciated the decision to allow Camp 4 detainees
to garden.
"This is welcome news and one small but important step toward sanity,"
said Sabin Willett, an attorney who represents ethnic Uighurs from
western China held at Guantanamo.
Willett said gardens have traditionally been allowed in prisoner-of-
war camps and even U.S. Army regulations require that "men held in
prolonged imprisonment must be given some useful and creative thing to
do."
Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney with the British human rights group
Reprieve, said he asked the military last year to allow gardening and
had begun collecting donated seeds. He learned the gardening had been
authorized during a visit to the prison last week. "It's a small step
forward," he said. "
