Monday, 23 February 2009
A US defence department review of conditions at Guantanamo Bay detention camp has called for an easing of the isolation of prisoners there.
The Pentagon report says inmates should be allowed more social interaction and opportunities for recreation. It comes as new US Attorney General Eric Holder pays his first visit to the controversial facility in Cuba. Last month, President Barack Obama ordered the Guantanamo Bay camp to be closed within one year.
About 250 prisoners are still held there, nearly all without charge. Among them was a UK inmates, who returned from the camp to Britain earlier on Monday. Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 30, was held in Guantanamo for more than four years and says he was tortured. He became the first Guantanamo prisoner released since Barack Obama took office.
Humane treatment
The report, by Adm Patrick M Walsh, says conditions at the camp comply with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. However, it recommends allowing more socialisation among prisoners, many of whom are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. Such interaction "is essential to maintain humane treatment over time", the report says. "In our opinion, the key to socialisation is providing more human-to-human contact, recreation opportunities with several detainees together, intellectual stimulation, and group prayer," AFP news agency cited the report as saying.
Mr Holder is being briefed on the detainees and the charges they were facing before military trials were halted last month. The attorney general is making his visit away from the media glares, the BBC's James Coomarasamy in Washington says. It comes as the Obama administration wrestles with the legal, practical and security implications of its pledge to shut Guantanamo, he adds.
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