Journalists should investigate Castro's prisons instead of GitmoThe recent press hysteria over the treatment of al Qaeda prisoners gives the impression that Cuba is an idyllic bastion of human rights, except that American eyesore Guantánamo Bay. Overzealous journalists traveling to the communist island are determined to uncover some form of torture or mistreatment of prisoners. After discovering that the inhumanity imagined at “Gitmo” is actually nothing more than mildly uncomfortable conditions, these same journalists responded with irresponsible exaggeration. A British editorial describes the prisoners as "trapped in open cages, shackled hand and foot, brutalised, tortured and humiliated". Despite the falsity of these comments, the righteous indignation of the international community, somewhat muted after September 11, is gaining momentum with the help of unscrupulous journalists. The current living conditions in Guantánamo Bay do not have the scandal and spectacle so dear to American and Western European media culture. The various benefits granted to prisoners appear incredibly generous in light of their military CVs. These anti-American Al Qaeda fighters, who have pursued a distorted, unjust, and murderous jihad, deserve basic necessities and little else. However, the camp provides two towels to each prisoner daily to meet both sanitation and prayer needs. You might wonder if some of those prayers include praising Allah for killing thousands of innocent Americans by hijacking commercial airliners. Or perhaps they simply thank the fact that Osama bin Laden remains free, free from the justice of the infidels. In any case, the prisoners are in... half paper... s." While illegal combatants detained at Gitmo receive daily sick calls, the UN Special Rapporteur has criticized the "widespread incidence" of "tuberculosis, scabies, hepatitis, parasitic infections and malnutrition" in Cuban prisons. Where is the media outcry over real human rights violations by Castro's government? Where is the investigation into prison riots against inadequate medical services, constant beatings and squalid cell conditions Sure, the blackout glasses and noise-cancelling headphones on al Qaeda inmates may be annoying, but it takes a twisted relativism to equate the discomforts of Gitmo clothing with parasitic infections and political oppression. Examples of real injustice abound in the Castro regime. Journalists would be better served by human rights by investigating, not inventing, incidents of torture.