Detained and denied: A seed still grows

[Judi Lynn]

April 29, 2006, 12:19AM
Detained and denied: A seed still grows
In Gitmo, instinct for beauty lives on

By P. SABIN WILLETT

I brought flowers to the isolation cell when I visited Saddiq this month. He likes to draw roses and often asks for gardening magazines.

Saddiq is one of the many mistakes at Guantanamo Bay. In 2005 our military admitted that he was not an enemy combatant, but the government hasn't been able to repatriate him. So he lives behind wire in Camp Iguana, with eight other men whom the military cleared long ago but who are nevertheless forbidden newspapers, visits from loved ones, English dictionaries — and flowers.

For some time we lawyers have been asking the military for a garden. Gardens are commonplace in POW camps, and these men aren't even enemies. They live in a pen, but it has a small patch of ground. Why not? The military refused.

I was trying to explain this to Saddiq, along with other inexplicable things (such as how it is that innocent men can be held for years in an American prison), when he said, "We planted a garden. We have some small plants — watermelon, peppers, garlic, cantaloupe. No fruit yet. There's a lemon tree about two inches tall, though it's not doing well."

"The guards gave you tools?"
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/3828761.html