Guantanamo: Dark Side


  • Photographer
    Edmund Clark
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    2009
  • Technical Info
    Hasselblad HD II 39 digital

Guantanamo: Dark Side For eight years the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba has been home to hundreds of men, all Muslim, all detained in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Many have been held in legal limbo for years and repeatedly interrogated with methods some have called torture. These images show some of the cages, cells and equipment used for the exercise, confinement, interrogation and force feeding of these detainees. This work seeks to convey the sense of isolation and vulnerability central to the experience of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Story

Guantanamo: Dark Side

'We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side...it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically to achieve our objective.'
Vice President Dick Cheney

For eight years the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba has been home to hundreds of men, all Muslim, all detained in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Most of these men were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many fell prey to a U.S. military policy of paying bounty money for anyone the Pakistani secret service, border guards or village leaders on both sides of the blurred Afghan-Pakistan border could use as currency in the newly defined ‘War on Terror’.

Many have been held in legal limbo for years and repeatedly interrogated with methods some have called torture. Almost all have been released without charge and only a very few have been tried in the special military commissions set up for the purpose.

Since January 2002 there have been eight camps at Guantanamo ranging from temporary wire cages to sophisticated maximum security prisons. These images show some of the cages, cells and equipment used for the exercise, confinement, interrogation and force feeding of detainees. This work seeks to convey the sense of isolation and vulnerability central to the experience of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Despite President Obama’s promise to close them in January 2010, the camps still hold over 180 men.

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