SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military said Friday.
The fight occurred Thursday in a medium-security section of the camp as guards were responding to the fourth attempted suicide that day at the detention center on the
U.S. Navy base, Cmdr. Robert Durand said.
Detainees used fans, light fixtures and other improvised weapons to attack the guards as they entered a communal living area to stop a prisoner trying to hang himself, Durand said.
Earlier in the day, three detainees in another part of the prison attempted suicide by swallowing prescription medicine they had been hoarding.
The attempted suicides and clash occurred on the same day the military transferred 15 Saudi detainees to their country, leaving about 460 prisoners at Guantanamo. It was unclear if the disturbances were related to the transfers.
This was the second reported simultaneous suicide attempt at Guantanamo, which holds detainees suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. The U.S. military said 23 detainees carried out a coordinated effort to hang or strangle themselves in 2003 during a weeklong protest in the secretive camp in Cuba.
There have been previous reports of protests and more minor disturbances at the detention center, including incidents in which detainees hurled urine and other bodily fluids at guards or banged on cell doors for hours at a time. A hunger strike that began in August has involved up to 131 detainees but now has dwindled to a handful.
There have been 39 suicide attempts at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002, the military said. At least 12 were by Juma'a Mohammed al-Dossary, a 32-year-old from Bahrain.
But hey, why look at all this bad news about Gitmo prisoners rioting? How about some good news for a change? How about this story from CNN.Com:
(CNN) -- The United States should close its jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and any secret prisons it may be running, a U.N. panel said Friday.
"The state party should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close this detention facility, permit access by the detainees to judicial process or release them as soon as possible," the U.N. Committee Against Torture said in an 11-page report issued in Geneva, Switzerland.
The report concluded that detention of suspects without charges being filed runs counter to established human rights law and that the war on terrorism does not constitute an armed conflict under international law.
The report also suggested that the United States is operating "secret prisons" and called on Washington to close any "it may be running."
The report said U.S. interrogators should stop using "water boarding" and other questioning techniques that amount to torture.
American officials reportedly have acknowledged using water boarding as one of the more extreme techniques to elicit information from suspects.
The technique involves strapping down an interrogation subject and dunking them in water or otherwise making them feel that they may be drowning, although they are not.
The committee also took aim at the United States using dogs to induce fear and methods involving sexual humiliation -- both documented in unofficial photographs taken at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq. Several of the individuals involved in those cases have been prosecuted.
It urged an end to any methods that amounted to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
It is nice to know that the U.S. is now sitting in the gutter with other totalitarian nations that incarcerate and torture individuals without trial or legal recourse.
USA! USA! USA!
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