International
New prison coming up at Guantanamo -------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, January 12, 2006 (Guantanamo Bay):
Exactly four years after the first detainees in the US wars on terror were brought to Guantanamo and thrust into makeshift jails, hard-hatted construction workers are building a two-storey complex modelled after a US prison.
The maximum-security facility will have air conditioning, a health clinic, recreation yards - and arrows pointing to Mecca, the direction Muslims face while praying.
Officials in Gitmo, as soldiers call the base, say the prison will make life better for detainees. But critics fear it underscores that for many prisoners, detention is apt to last a very long time.
"The US government would like to turn Gitmo into a permanent prison camp with no legal recourse for detainees, and to create a permanent legal black hole in which hundreds of individuals are held without ever being charged with crimes," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
When US forces brought the first 20 prisoners into Guantanamo Bay on January 11, 2002, they were put into a makeshift jail of open-air cells with walls of chain-link fences.
Contractors are erecting the new two-story prison at the foot of hills covered with jumbo cactuses, alongside the base's only other maximum-security facility, which opened in May 2004.
It is expected to be completed in June and will be able to house 200 prisoners, while reducing the manpower needed to guard the prisoners. (AP)