Le Monde ran a story yesterday about the ‘Russians’ in Guantanamo who are begging NOT to be extradited. The Russian government is trying to have 8 prisoners – including Chechens and Tartars – sent to Russia to face trial on terrorism charges. Meanwhile, the mothers of two of them are begging the US not to send their sons to Russian prisons where they could face torture and death.
America has certainly fallen well below its own standards of justice and fair treatment in Guantanamo. But to a prisoner who’s already known jails in Chechnya, Russia and Afghanistan, the prison camp evidently measures up to the best of Russian sanatoriums.
Radio Free Europe ran a piece on this last week. The story was then picked up and a further corroborating interview added by a Russian tv station, and that seems to be where Le Monde’s reporter saw it.
{ 5 comments }
Jack Murray 08.14.03 at 7:22 pm
The irony of it all is the United States helped pressure Israel to release its enemy combatants, some with ties to plotting murder of innocents. They may be gaining weight with their three square meals, but they can’t stay there much longer. We should release those prisoners whose countries are not sympathetic to terror, and put the rest in military tribunals.
Gavin 08.14.03 at 11:39 pm
just a quibble, alleged terrorists are kept in prisons; mentally ill people and other convalescents are kept in sanatoriums…
infamouse 08.15.03 at 12:05 am
Yeah, I think when I saw this article on Reuters, it was better than Russian spas or health resorts. Interesting how the game of telephone changes things. I wonder where the mistranslation is.
infamouse 08.15.03 at 12:05 am
Yeah, I think when I saw this article on Reuters, it was better than Russian spas or health resorts. Interesting how the game of telephone changes things. I wonder where the mistranslation is.
Pio 08.16.03 at 4:47 am
Simple, in slavic languages, “sanotorium” generally means spas or health resorts. To tell you the truth, i never realized it had a different meaning in english until now.
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