"Guantanamo prison, place of shame, no more torture in our name"

Yesterday, the 11th of January, people world wide protest the U.S. High Security Prison at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The peace fighters protested the prison by stage everyday situations in the prison. With some dressed as military personnel and some as prisoners in orange jumpsuits, the protesters imitated sleep deprivation, starvation and abuse. In Washington D.C., Peace Activist Cindy Sheehan shouted to the masses, "If dogs were treated like this in my country, there would be an uprising." Cindy Sheehan has been fighting the peace front ever since her son was killed in Iraq. What the peace activists find so unjust at Guantanamo is that since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, just about 770 alleged terrorists have been detained at the prison, but only ten of the 770 detains have been tried and charged of any crimes. Asif Iqbal, a British citizen, was a detainee at Guantanamo spent two years there before being released with no trial or charge. Iqbal was quoted claiming that he received, "endless beatings, tortured with sleep deprivation and forced into signing a fake confession made up of crimes from other detainees." The United States' official stance on the prison is that it recognizes it's negative effect on the reputation of the United States however Colonel Lora is quoted, "I can tell you that we are detaining the right people in Guantanamo, we are detaining them legally, ethically, and humanely."
Guantanamo is one of the many penitentiaries in American history to be harsh in both its conditions and punishments. So one cannot help but look at this recent flush of protests and question if they should be dignified. The first New Jersery state penitentiary in the early 1800's took it's code of ethics from the old ways of Puritan religion by locking cell mates in small dark rooms with a single window, keeping inmates faces shrouded at all times and using various forms of water torture. In 1945, Alcatraz Penitentiary of California opened its doors to the world with Cell Block D where prisoners who disobeyed felt maximum sercurity and ultimate comfort deprivation. Guantanamo when comapred to other prisons in history seems not much worse, perhaps the best way to approach Guantanamo is just as it were another prison in history.