http://www.plastic.com/article.html?sid/03/30/16022146
Did anyone notice that eighteen detainees were sent home from Guantanamo? The NY Times and the Los Angeles Times decided it wasn’t newsworthy. Maybe it had something to do with the lack of sensationalism:
They sat in their cells in Guantanamo Bay for months, reading books in Pashtu, doing sit-ups and push-ups, and playing soccer for maybe 15 minutes every other day. Most of the 18 men just released from the U.S. military prison in Cuba said the only torture they encountered there was boredom. Even the food was decent. “But wait. The conservative Washington Times also failed to notice. Shouldn’t they be gloating? Maybe, but the Australian news.com thought there was some meat on the bone:
A GROUP of 18 Afghans released from a US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today told how they were kept in tiny cages and subjected to interrogations for more than a year to prove their innocence. …Murtaza, who like many Afghans has only one name, described being cooped up in cages in Guantanamo, sometimes hooded and handcuffed, during a seemingly interminable detention. “The Washington Post wrote about the release, choosing to mix the good with the bad:
Afghan men freed today after spending months in legal limbo as U.S. prisoners in the war on terrorism said they were generally well-fed and given medical care, but housed in cramped cells and sometimes shackled, hit and humiliated. “Perhaps the best story of all to come out of this was from the Xinhua News Agency which reported:
A 25-year-old Afghan man who was proved innocent after over one year of detention in an American military base at Guantanamo Bay said he would seek compensation from the US government. Saeed Abbasin, one of the 18 Afghans recently released by the US authorities, said on Wednesday here that he hopes Americans could pay for his missing taxicab and the time he fiddled in US military custody at the Cuban island. “What could be better than for an innocent detainee to be allowed to sue the American government for compensation? Now that’s due process.”