Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay

CAMP DELTA, June 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Clashes occurred between the U.S. military and British journalists Friday, June 20, at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, while the latter took a tour in the fourth camp of the Cuba-based naval base.

Audio recordings made by the BBC Panorama team were seized by U.S. forces and the BBC reporter Vivienne White was banished to a section of the bay away from Camp Delta, according to British daily the Guardian.

“The journalists, including one from the Guardian, saw the inmates wearing white clothes and eating at an outside table as temperatures reached 38C (100F),” the daily said.

“The journalists, while making a tour in the camp described by the U.S. forces as “the safest among the camps of the base”, heard from behind a fence the voice of a man in his late 20s, with a Pakistani accent, shouting out: "Are you journalists? Can we talk to you?"

“White responded: "We're from BBC television, we are from BBC TV." Then immediately U.S. officials tried to order the reporters out. Yet, the detainee added, "We've been waiting to see you."

"We've been here a long time ... we will talk to you later," another detainee added,” according to the paper.

A melee broke out as the reporters stood by only three meters away. One U.S. officer said: "Either you keep moving or the tour ends." The U.S. forces kept the BBC journalist in a remote part of the camp for a short time.

As the journalists walked through camp four, detainees shouted that they wanted to tell their story and the U.S. soldiers immediately halted the tour, ordering everyone out.

“U.S. officials next confined journalists to a bus, before allowing those reporters not with the BBC to continue the tour. A U.S. official told the Guardian that the BBC Panorama team had been told they would have to hand over their audio recordings if they wished to do any more filming at the camp.

“The source said sections containing the detainees' voices had been erased before the tapes were handed back and filming, outside and away from Camp Delta, was allowed to continue,” the Guardian went on.

Justifications, Instructions

Meanwhile, a Camp Delta spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson, justified the actions of the U.S. forces and said the BBC team had ignored an instruction to move, and had broken the ground rules they had promised to obey.

"The big deal was that the ground rules were there for a reason and part of that reason is we try hard not to exploit the situation of the detainees, and that way no contact is allowed in the camp," Col Johnson said, adding that the BBC journalist had shouted to the detainees first, according to the Guardian’s report.

About 680 people, including around nine Britons, are being held in Guantanamo Bay naval base in U.S.-occupied Cuba, as part of the Bush administration's “war against terror”.

The U.S. military maintains the detainees cannot speak to the press because of the Geneva Convention, but that claim is disputed by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Most detainees, arrested by the U.S. forces following 11/9 attacks under pretext of “abolishing terrorism”, complain of psychological sufferings and depression; a matter that led about 30 of them to attempt committing suicide.