Convicted of kidnapping, Alejandro Nuñez del Arco brings together more than one thousand inmates to practice Full Body aerobics in the courtyard of one of Peru’s most notorious prisons. With armed guards peering from above, Nuñez del Arco attempts to break the world record for the most people simultaneously performing the exercise, whether inside a jail or not.
Tag: Prison
Letter from Prison – John Kiriakou [Letters of note]
John Kiriakou was jailed for 30 months for whistle-blowing against the CIA’s torture methods. He wrote this letter from jail. Please take the time to read.
The letter details his life in prison, including an incident in which prison officials attempted setup a confrontation between Kiriakou and a Muslim prisoner, telling Kiriakou he was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, when in reality the imam was in prison for refusing to testify in the Lackawanna Six case. Prison officials also lied to the Muslim prisoner, telling him that Kiriakou had called Washington after they met and had been ordered to kill him.
The torture continues [Guantanamo article]
“They won’t try us. They won’t let us live in peace, and they won’t let us die in peace.”
The Guardian has another article – one of many – on the ongoing hunger strike in Guantanamo.
Guantanamo prison library books for detainees [Photoblog]
A photoblog by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Charles Savage – about the library in the Guantanamo bay prison. Charles’ blog was part of his report into the hunger strike by the Gitmo prisoners – now numbering 93 inmates on strike.
..both military officials and lawyers for the detainees agree about the underlying cause of the turmoil: a growing sense among many prisoners, some of whom have been held without trial for more than 11 years, that they will never go home.
Hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay [Article]
Guantanamo’s hunger strike story is not in the media. As Amy Davidson points out in the New Yorker, the US Administration seems intent on hiding the fact that 1 in 5 of the 166 inmates of the illegal prison are on a hunger strike. More than half of the inmates have been cleared for release (there is no evidence to legally hold them in prison), yet are being held without reason.
The numbers strike one as all wrong—not incorrect, that is, but proof that something has gone very wrong at Guantánamo. The right numbers—the ones one would expect from a prison run by a country of laws—are a hundred and sixty-six facing trials, and zero held for no good reason. ……….. Taking a dozen prisoners a day to a room where they are force-fed with tubes stuck into their noses should not be part of the normal routine at Guantánamo, or at any American prison.