És Bagram, i no Guantànamo, el que hauria de pertorbar la consciència del món

Ho diu Tim Reid, corresponsal del Times de Londres després de visitar la base de Guantànamo:

Today the US military is so sensitive about the stigma of Guantánamo that it is run fully in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. In Camp IV, for “fully compliant” detainees, they get 18 hours a day of communal “recreation”. Hiding, we watched some playing soccer, until they saw us. They shouted at the guards to take us away. The guards immediately acceded.

It was striking - almost alarming - just how big and healthy the prisoners look. They are offered 5,000 calories of halal food a day, classes in English, Arabic and art, and are called to prayer five times a day. Religious feast nights are observed. They have a medical check-up every week and receive dental treatment. Inside a television beams - live - two Arab channels and a soccer programme, although it stands behind protective perspex. The last one was destroyed when prisoners objected to bare female flesh during a Palmolive soap advert.

This is not the hell-hole so many still believe Guantánamo is. Indeed, the grossly underreported story is a US-run jail that Mr Obama does not want the world to focus on - the makeshift prison on the US airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan. There, more than 600 prisoners, many held for years and all without charge and indefinitely, are packed into conditions far worse than Guantánamo. They have virtually no access to lawyers. Journalists and human rights groups are barred. Earlier this year the Obama Administration opposed in court an attempt by some held there to challenge their detention.

It is Bagram, not Guantánamo, that should trouble the world's conscience.