Life harsher in new Gantanamo unit

Life harsher in new Guantanamo unit

By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- Abdul Helil Mamut's good behavior earned him a spot in a medium-security compound at the Guantanamo Bay prison, where he slept in a barracks, shared leisurely meals with other prisoners and could spend more than half the day in an outdoor recreation area.

But in December, the detainee was among dozens transferred from Camp 4 to the maximum-security Camp 6, the newest section of Guantanamo Bay's military prison.

Now Mamut, an ethnic Uighur from China captured in Pakistan, spends all but two hours a day isolated in his cell. He eats and prays by himself. His only recreation comes in a concrete courtyard surrounded by high walls, separated from other prisoners by a chain-link fence.

The U.S. government says the unit provides detainees with more private and comfortable quarters.

But Mamut and other Uighur prisoners complain their days are now filled with "infinite tedium and loneliness," said Sabin Willett, an attorney for the men, in an affidavit filed in a Washington court.

"All expressed a desperate desire for sunlight, fresh air and someone to speak to," Willett wrote after a January visit to the prison, located on the U.S. military base in southeastern Cuba, where the U.S. holds nearly 400 men suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Wells Dixon, who also represents Uighurs held at Guantanamo, predicted the lack of human interaction in Camp 6 will cause detainees to lose their grip on reality.

"It will very soon become an insane asylum," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview after he returned from the base in January.

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Auschwitz

Supermax.

Lawyers Demand Release of Chinese Muslims
Court Documents Allege Lengthy Detainment at Guantanamo Is Part of Deal With Beijing

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A13

... The lawyers -- Sabin Willett and Susan Baker Manning -- allege in the court documents that their clients' detention was one of several demands the Chinese government solicited in mid-2002 as the United States was seeking global support for toppling Saddam Hussein ...

The Uighurs have told military court officials they were not allied with the Taliban and are sympathetic to the United States, which they view as a liberator. They said they were living in a small community in Afghanistan after fleeing oppression in China.

According to military tribunal records and court filings, the men were lured to a mosque in Pakistan, where they were arrested and later turned over to Pakistani authorities. Willett said he believes the men were sold to the United States for sizable bounties and were sent to Guantanamo along with many other detainees captured there.

The lawyers challenge the way the Uighurs were determined to be enemy combatants, arguing that their encampment in Afghanistan did not make them a party to hostilities. The Uighurs have said the United States allowed a Chinese delegation to visit and interrogate them after their capture, and that the Chinese threatened them. A U.S. official confirmed that the Chinese were allowed to question the Uighurs ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401191_pf.html