"Rocker Patti Smith Lashes Out at Gitmo"

[GreenPartyVoter]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Rocker Patti Smith said Friday that her concern for the hundreds of men imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay compelled her to record a song about a former detainee.

"I feel responsible as an American citizen," Smith told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from New York. "It's a terrible injustice and I think it will be a stain upon us when history examines this period."

Smith's "Without Chains" focuses on Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turkish citizen who said he was kept under fluorescent lights for 24 hours at a time and complained of being beaten at the U.S. military detention center in southeast Cuba. Detainees are held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, many without the opportunity to face trial.

"I'm not really politically articulate, so I try to respond to the things that move me in a humanistic way," the 60-year-old singer told the AP. "I can't imagine people languishing in prison for years while other people are trying to decide what to do."

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070414/D8OG2UHO0.html