Pulaski

Some times things do not work out as expected. Here is the interesting tale of an ex-Guantanamo bay detainee. .... And the strangest thing of all is that it is being reported by the BBC!

elfman

"He spent much of his time in captivity in Camp Iguana, the children's section of the US detention centre on the tropical island of Cuba."

The Guantanamo Bay prison/concentration camp has a CHILDREN'S SECTION???????????????

This kid is 13 now, and was held for over a year, so must have been banged up at age 12. How many other kids do they have locked up there? I'm speechless.....

JeanDupont

Elfman - children can be pretty bad too - have you not seen the Palestinian boys' behaviour on the TV news?
I am not taking either side on this or passing any judgement on the political issues but its not surprising children get arrested or shot when they attack soldiers or are in an area where this is happening - whatever country they are in.
Often their parents encourage them to do these things as they believe the children will get away with it while an adult would be immediately stopped by whatever means.
ANother example I saw is in Africa where the children are forced or given the opportunity to join an army and then taught to cut off people's limbs with machetes.Somewhere round the Gold Coast area.
Its an evil world and life can be cheap. Children lose their innocence young in some places.
Doesn't seem like this Afghan kid suffered much as far as I can see.

elfman

So it's ok to transport children to the other side of the world and lock them up for over a year without legal representation or other contact, just because they happen to live in a country where terrorists are being hunted down. Just because this kid picked up a bit of English while he was locked up doesn't mean he hasn't suffered psychologically.

I assume you also think it's ok that the USA is the only developed country in the world to apply the death penalty to juveniles.

And maybe I don't watch enough TV news but when you talk about palestinian children, do you mean the ones who throw stones at Israeli soldiers for bulldozing their homes and then get shot in response?

bubbadog

What the cameras don't show is the use of children as shields. There are documented reports that kids are used to protect snipers, etc. It is a despicable practice that, sadly, probably won't change anytime soon.

JeanDupont

If a child has an AK47 (or other weapon) that gun is just as lethal as if it were an adult holding it.
Guns are the great equalizer - if they were not I would not be here today.
In a world where we don't have the time or resources for 100% guaranteed re-education of murderers so that they will never kill again then maybe rough justice - permanently eliminating the killers - even if juveniles - is the least-bad solution for a safer society?
I am not convinced about this and am willing to listen to a anyone who has a better solution.

NC Penguin

I guess the American military and the US government kept that fact under wraps. I wonder if any form of American media ever reported that it had detained any children?

Historically speaking, the US has done this before. During the Second World War, the US removed Japanese Americans living within the US, both adults and children from society, and put them into detention camps for the duration of the Second World War...

elfman

I've never been a big fan of the Manic Street Preachers, but one of their lyrics just sprang to mind:

"if you tolerate this then your children will be next"

irb

Does the quote of "I want the Americans to pay me because I was not a criminal. I want them to help me become a doctor." sound more like the words of a lawyer than a 13 year old boy with very little understanding of English?

NC Penguin

Perhaps. What's wrong with him wanting some financial redress for losing a year of his life detained by the US in a foreign country, away from his family?

Were his human rights respected under the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child? Wait a minute. I just looked at the UNICEF website very briefly. Most interestingly, the convention has been ratified by 192 countries and there are two countries noted that have not ratified. One is the US (the other is Somalia).

edwords

You are absolutlely correct. But I may be the only person in this forum who agrees with you. The others seem to have a very sentimental, western-oriented view of children that much of the rest of the world, sadly, doesn't embrace.

NC Penguin

I read a couple of online articles about Naqibullah (the boy described in the OP's post) and one of the other three boys who were released by the US government at the same time.

None of the articles mentioned that any of the boys were ever charged with any crime.

My posts in this thread were simply to voice concerns that a child has been detained so long and no charges have been brought despite holding him and the other two for such a long period of time.

edwords and JeanDupont are conducting their own off topic discussion about children and guns that has nothing to do with this thread since the original BBC article and the other online article I read about these boys makes no mention of them and carrying firearms let alone shooting anyone at all.

So, not surprisingly, both edwords and JeanDupont agree with each other because they are discussing an issue that is beyond the original topic of the thread.

edwords

Naqibullah: "I hadn't done anything, but they suspected me because I was standing next to some men who had guns," he said. "I told them I was innocent. I don't even know how to use a gun."

Yes, a victim of circumstances I'm sure. BTW, he's the oldest looking 13-year-old I've ever seen.

JeanDupont

"I hadn't done anything, but they suspected me because I was standing next to some men who had guns," he said.


Maybe he won't stand around with men who carry guns again................



In many places if you were with" some men who had guns" who were robbing a bank and someone was killed then you would be charged with murder even if "you didn't know how to use a gun". The death penalty would then be yours..................


I'd say he got off lightly.

dbj1000

Jean, you really are a nasty piece of work, aren't you? I wonder how you'd feel if one of your children was a bystander during military action and simply disappeared into high-security detention for a year?