A rare direct inside view from Gitmo's darkness

"I am writing from the darkness of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo in the hope that I can make our voices heard by the world. My hand quivers as I hold the pen.

In January 2002, I was picked up in Pakistan, blindfolded, shackled, drugged and loaded onto a plane flown to Cuba. When we got off the plane in Guantanamo, we did not know where we were. They took us to Camp X-Ray and locked us in cages with two buckets — one empty and one filled with water. We were to urinate in one and wash in the other."

So begins a piece on Information Clearing House written by Jumah Al-Dossar, a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002. The article was excerpted from letters he wrote to his attorneys. Its contents have been deemed unclassified by the Department of Defense. It serves as a rare insight from inside Gitmo. In reading the full piece, appalling and disgraceful are the only words which immediately come to mind.

Another perspective on Guantanamo is that of Melissa Hoffer, a Boston attorney, whose client is imprisoned at Gitmo. She shows another aspect of Gitmo, and what it means for those incarcerated there, in an article in the Boston Globe "Trapped at Guantanamo".

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