The Daily Beast reported that Gitmo prison’s most notorious terror suspects are “tortured” with daily intakes of RT broadcasts. Gitmo representative, Navy Commander John Robinson, confirmed that RT was indeed on the list of the 200 channels in different languages available to the inmates.
“The current list of offerings includes RT, among numerous other news sources. Detainees choose which stations, if any, they watch or listen to,” Robinson said.
RT managed to talk with former Gitmo inmate Moazzam Begg, who said that the idea of Americans forcing the inmates to watch RT is far from correct, because it is one of a handful of channels, which pay attention to the situation in flare points around the world and also to what is going on at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison.
Begg, a British national, was jailed in Afghanistan in 2002 and later moved to Gitmo before being released in 2005. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that he was finally cleared of the charges of terrorism that had been brought against him. RT was founded in September 2005.
He said that he had talked to his good friend, Shaker Aamer, also a onetime Gitmo inmate, who was set free in 2015.
“He told me that RT is the first place to go to because it is the only English-language news channel the Gitmo prisoners can watch, which keeps a close eye on the conditions the inmates exist in,” Begg said.
“Many of them know me because they have seen me on RT, that’s why I don’t think the Americans would force them to watch it,” Begg noted. He added that Aamer also wants to be interviewed by RT because he knows that those who are still imprisoned at Gitmo watch it.
“It also means that both the US authorities and the inmates will have the chance to learn the unpleasant truth about this prison,” Moazzam Begg said.
Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, a current Gitmo inmate arrested by the CIA in Pakistan in 2007, said that he and his fellow cellmates were being fed a media diet heavy on RT.
RT has over the years been covering the situation at and around the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. RT correspondent Anastasia Churkina did a series of reports from the infamous US prison facility.
Gitmo gained notoriety in 2004 after information about the torture of prisoners there was leaked to the press.
Ten years later, the Senate intelligence committee released a report on the CIA’s abuse of prisoners under President George W. Bush. However, despite numerous promises to shut down Gitmo, the prison remains open.
