The Road to Guantanamo..

The Road to Guantanamo is one of the movies which impressed me recently.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, this docudrama is the story about 4 Pakistani Britons (Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul and Monir), who travel to Pakistan for a wedding and in a urge of idealism decide to see the situation of war torn Afghanistan which is being bombed by the American forces in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Sensing the situation in Afghan they decide to return back to Pakistan, when the situation worsens. None of them are ready to help them return to Pakistan as the entire area is getting occupied by United Front soldiers. Finally they manage to sneak into a truck, whose driver agrees them to get transported to Pakistan. During night time, their rest place gets attacked by the Northern Alliance soldiers and they get caught along with all the Talibans and militants. Monir dies in the bombing attack and the rest three are transported to prison camps.

What follows is a series of tortures, where all the army officers force them to agree that they are part of the Al-Qaeda. They are then transported to Guantanamo bay base in Cuba. What follows is three years of relentless imprisonment, interrogations and torture to make them submit to blatantly wrong confessions to being terrorists. In the midst In the midst of this abuse, the three struggle to keep their spirits up. Finally to their surprise the US/Brit Govt decides to release them. (which I think has never happened!!)The film will penetrate deep into your mind. The tortures they face, the way they are treated and the way the Army officers frame them of their charges, the camera, the pace at which the movie moves..every second of the movie impresses you.

And about Guantanamo:

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is located at the southeastern end of Cuba and has been used by the United States Navy for more than a century. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Navy Base and the only one in a country with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations.

Since 2002, the naval base has contained a military prison, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, for persons alleged to be militant combatants captured in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. Prior to July 11, 2006, the Bush Administration maintained that these detainees are not protected under the Geneva Convention.

Beginning in 2002, a small portion of the base was used to imprison several hundred individuals — some of whom were captured by US forces in Afghanistan, though the majority were 'bought' for a substantial bounty (generally in the region of $US 5000) from various warlords and mercenaries both in Afghanistan and elsewhere — at Camp Delta, Camp Echo, Camp Iguana, and the now-closed Camp X-Ray. The US military has asserted that some, but not all, of these captives are linked to Al-Qaida or the Taliban. The military has withheld the evidence against captives asserted to be linked to terrorist organizations or enemy states. In litigation regarding the availability of fundamental rights to those imprisoned at the base, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the captives "have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control." Therefore, the captives have the fundamental right to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. A district court has since held that the "Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban captives, but not to members of al Qaeda terrorist organization."

The closing-down of the Guantánamo Prison has been requested by Amnesty International, the United Nations and the European Union.On 6 September 2006, President Bush announced that enemy combatants held by the CIA will be transferred to the custody of DOD, and held at Guantánamo Prison. Among approximately 500 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, only 10 have been tried by the Guantanamo military commission, but all cases have been stayed pending the adjustments being made to comply with the Hamdi decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.