It's Ok Guantanamo Exists, The Inmates Are Allowed To Garden
Some Guantanamo inmates able to garden
http://www.localnewswatch.com/benton...lnews&id=73910
(Gold9472: This story is being blasted throughout the newswire, and that's the first thought that popped into my head.)
By BEN FOX, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago
Staff and agencies
10 March, 2007
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A select group of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been allowed to garden for the first time, a military spokesman said.
The military allowed the plants — and provided plastic gardening tools, watering cans and seeds — at the request of lawyers for detainees, Durand said Friday in an e-mail response to questions about the activity.
Gardening is intended to "provide intellectual stimulation" to prisoners, Durand said, comparing it to the military‘s detainee library and literacy programs in Arabic and Pashto, a language spoken mainly in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Only those who have "demonstrated long-term compliance with camp rules," are permitted to live in Camp 4, Durand said.
Lawyers said they appreciated the decision to allow Camp 4 detainees to garden.
Willett said gardens have traditionally been allowed in prisoner-of-war camps and even U.S. Army regulations require that "men held in prolonged imprisonment must be given some useful and creative thing to do."
