Now that Trump has been elected leader of the nominally free world, democracy has jumped the shark. But absurdity is nothing new to Guantánamo – a place where peaceful hunger strikes (the last remaining form of protest for detainees) are renamed “non-religious fasts” and suicide is described as SIB – self-injurious behaviour, or “an act of asymmetrical warfare”. It’s a place where even books make the authorities uneasy – Crime and Punishment and Uncle Tom’s Cabin have been banned, along with Jack and the Beanstalk. Thankfully, Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith is still allowed in – but his books are not (which he tells me is one of the few kindnesses the guards have shown to the prisoners).
