More Gitmo Torture — Detainees Can Now Chat With Families Via Video Link
Remind me again of the inhumane detention conditions at Club Gitmo?
(The Seattle Times) — With the prison camps at Guantánamo approaching their 10th year, the majority Yemeni captive population has just received a new perk: Video conferencing back to family via a new link set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Geneva-based group announced the service’s inauguration on Tuesday, saying four Yemeni captives had been allowed to use the teleconferencing this month in calls beamed between the Navy base in southeast Cuba and the nation on the Arabian Peninsula.
Prisoners and family can speak by video for up to an hour, according to a Red Cross statement. It said some detainees and their families can now see and speak to each other “for the first time in almost a decade.”
The ICRC had earlier acted as go-between for the captives and their families with “Red Cross Messages.” Those are the brief exchanges on official forms that the Pentagon sanctioned soon after it opened the camps on Jan. 11, 2002, provided the military could review each message before delivery.
The U.S. holds 90 Yemenis at Guantánamo, according to the ICRC. They account for the largest nationality among the 174 captives at the prison camps. One is segregated from the rest as a war criminal — former video-maker Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, 41, convicted in late 2008 of being Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida recruiter and propagandist.
The military at Guantánamo would not say whether all Yemeni captives can get video calls — or whether they are rewards in the Pentagon prison camps’ compliance matrix.
“I can confirm some of our detainees are Yemenis,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Donald Langley, a prison spokesman, refusing to speak to the specifics of the Red Cross announcement.
Some Yemeni captives have already passed their 10th year in U.S. custody, having been scooped up in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and turned over to invading U.S. forces.
Although various review processes spanning two administrations have cleared some of the Yemeni captives for repatriation, the U.S. has yet to reach an agreement with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to rehabilitate and monitor any men sent home.
A March 2009 U.S. Embassy cable from Sanaa, made public by WikiLeaks, described Saleh as “alternately dismissive, bored, and impatient” during a 40-minute meeting to resolve the topic with President Obama’s counterterrorism czar, deputy national security adviser John Brennan. At one point, Saleh sought $11 million in U.S. funds to build a rehab facility in the port city of Aden. At another, he suggested that the U.S. house his citizens at the federal Super-Max prison in Florence, Colo.
Posted by D-Lo on Wednesday, December 29, 2010, at 3:41 pm | 
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This is just a bunch of freaking crap.. These asshole need to be put in a cell and treated the same way they would treat Americans in their Country.. All this cuddling is just plain stupid and makes us look so damn weak..
The United States of America needs to get its ball back and get rid of the wussy and chief along with all the demented leftist ideologues.
I’m tired of the United States looking like a punk ass bitch. and I’m a girl..
balls.
Funny how the Yemeni’s don’t want their own!
Tele-video conversation.
Omar: “Hey Achmed I have this great idea for a new bomb I have thought about making. It doens’t blow up but you are captured and sent here to enjoy the beach, pool, all the halal you can eat, and watch Baywatch. If you are really good they even give you Cuban cigars. What a life. Forget the virgins”
Achmed: “Omar, that sounds really good. Send me the plans Fedex asap?
Omar: “will do that after I finish watching this episode of Glee!”
I think supermax is not such a bad idea!
If you’d ever seen my wives, you’d know that a video link to talk to them was cruel and unusual punishment! I don’t get no respect, I tells ya. No respect.
Great way for terrorists to communicate with the home base!
Good job Obama! The Ummah loves you!
This really doesn’t have anything to do with Odumbass… the group that set it up is out of Geneva and works for the red cross. We are one of the only countries that abides by the rules as far as enemy combatants in custody, ever heard of the geneva convention? Thats why they have these priviledges. Americans in prison are a whole different story, they aren’t “enemy combatants”. I’m not saying I agree with it, that’s just the way it is.
None of my relatives or friend who have deployed to Afcrapistan or Iraq ever got videochats or any of that. I doubt the guys in San Quentin get videochats. Why should these clowns? I’m all in favor of closing Guantanamo-after we put all the inmates down for a dirtnap.
When these people support and fight for a terrorist group whose sole intent is to kill Americans and Westerners. They should disappear into a bleak and very dismal Black Hole never to heard or seen again.
This administration is allowing and enabling these people. They will exploit this opportunity and it will be used against us. These are very dangerous people, but the most dangerous is the administration that allows this to even happen.
Sickening.
Screw the IRC! They haven’t done diddly squat for Gilad Shalit.
Homeland Security is doing EVERYTHING they can to ensure our safety…
Perhaps a little reduction in the U.S. contribution to the IRC budget might get their attention. Of course we could always jam the signal …….. or send film of pigs and dogs to their loved ones……..just sayin
And when will the Red Cross set up video conferencing for Gilad Shalit and his family? Never. Stuff the Red Cross. They took years to let Israel in because they didn’t want Israel to use the Star of David emblem instead of the red cross which is anathema to Jewish people,but they allowed Muslim countries to join under the Red Crescent emblem.Hypocrite swines.They kept the Holocaust records at Bad Arolsen for some 50 years before making them available to Holocaust survivors and their families. I never donate to the Red Cross, only to the Salvation army and Magen David Israel.