US activists protest outside Guantanamo Bay prison camp

US activists are holding a demonstration outside the US naval base at Guantánamo in eastern Cuba for a second straight day on Dec. 13, in protest against the treatment of prisoners held there. It is the first demonstration allowed by Cuba near the perimeter of the US military enclave where about 500 suspected members of al-Qaida and the Taliban have been held without trial for more than three years. Twenty-two Catholic activists of the Witness Against Torture group, including a nun and a priest, have been fasting at a Cuban military checkpoint five miles from the US base, which is as close as the Cuban government has allowed them to get. The activists initially planned to cross the military zone to reach the base's gate and demand to visit the prisoners. The Cuban military rarely allows civilians, let alone foreigners, near the 17-mile security perimeter, a no man's land of mines and barbed wire fences surrounding the base the US has held for a century at the entrance to Guantanamo Bay. One of the protesters used a cellular telephone to call the military base, the US Southern Command and the White House to request access to the detainees, only to have communication cut off after a brief exchange with an operator. The activists have said that they will stay up to a week awaiting a response. Stacey Byington, a civilian spokeswoman for US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, told the Associated Press in an e-mail that access is limited to those with official or authorized business. She said those inside the prison could not see the protesters and only knew of their presence through media reports. Activist Grace Ritter said the group was urging people back home to call the base and President Bush to demand that Witness Against Torture representatives have access to the prisoners. "If there isn't any torture going on as President Bush has said, then they should feel comfortable allowing us in and showing us around," said Ritter, 24, of Ithaca, NY. The protest has coincided with growing international demands from politicians, human-rights organizations and the Red Cross to see the Guantánamo detainees, and accusations they are being treated cruelly. The activists, many of whom have already been imprisoned in the past for protesting at US military and defense contractor sites, are defying a US ban on travel to Cuba. The group includes veterans of inner-city poverty work and pacifist actions in Iraq and Israel. Led by Frida Berrigan, daughter of Vietnam War protester Father Philip Berrigan, they marched for four days across eastern Cuba carrying banners that said "Stop the torture," "Free the prisoners" and "Close the naval base." During their 66-mile march across the island, the activists slept in Cubans' backyards and at farms. Response from local citizens was positive, Berrigan said. "I think we've seen a lot of gratitude on the part of people we've encountered [for the fact] that Americans are taking responsibility for an American problem, for the torture and the impunity and the lawlessness of what purports to be the world's largest democracy," she said. Three of the 25 American activists headed home on Dec. 13, but 22 others continued a water-only fast at the military checkpoint. "[We are going] to spread the word that people are being tortured at Guantánamo," Patricia Santoro, of Jersey City, NJ, one of the departing activists, said during a stop in Havana. "It isn't a myth, like most Americans believe. Our government has disgraced us, and I will tell everyone I see and know about this experience," she said. The detention center has become a symbol of the dispute over detainee abuse by the US military. The US government says they are "enemy combatants," not prisoners of war, and are not entitled to the same rights afforded under the Geneva Conventions. Interrogators at Guantánamo have used cold, heat, loud music and sleep deprivation on their subjects, according to a military investigation this year. In one case, a female interrogator smeared what she described as menstrual blood on a prisoner. In another, a Navy officer threatened to harm the family of a detainee, in violation of US military law. The investigation followed allegations by FBI agents who said they had seen interrogators insert lit cigarettes into prisoners' ears and chain prisoners to the floor in the fetal position for extended periods. Detainees who have been released have spoken of being forced to look at pornographic images, menaced with dogs and beaten. Thirty-two prisoners are on hunger strike to protest conditions at the prison. Twenty-five of those prisoners are being force-fed through tubes. The prisoners' hunger strike is part of what inspired the 25 activists to travel to the island.