Friday, February 24, 2006

Film Shows Treatment of Gitmo Prisoners

An award-winning film director who reconstructed scenes of torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay has called for the immediate closure of the US-run camp.
Michael Winterbottom's film shows prisoners in orange jumpsuits beaten, manacled to floors and subjected to defeaning music in solitary confinement. It tells the story of Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, the so-called Tipton Three, who set off for Pakistan in September 2001 and ended up in Camp Delta, in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. They were released without char-ge after more than two years' imprisonment.
Mr Winterbottom said: "What's most shocking isn't the torture or the shackling, it's that Guantanamo Bay exists at all. I think it should be closed down, and last week the United Nations said it should be closed down."
He criticised the Government's "perverse" refusal to come to the aid of the eight British residents still incarcerated in the camp in Cuba. Mr Winterbottom added: "There are still 500 people in Guantanamo. They are still experiencing all the things that we filmed."

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