Thirty-four J6 defendants recently submitted a request to be "transferred to Guantanamo Bay" because of how they are being treated in the DC jail where they are being held without trial in defiance of the sixth amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Speedy Trial Act of 1974.
The jail is described as "having medieval standards of living" and "hellacious conditions." The group has not been allowed visitations, access to religious services, or access to their attorneys.
They report that their laundry has been returned to them with "brown stains, pubic hair and or reeking of ripe urine." They claim they are losing hair and eyesight due to malnourishment, and that when they do receive food, it is full of worms. There are mice and cockroaches in their cellblocks, rust in the water, and black mold on the walls, floors, and vents.
They also wrote that they've been forced to watch "re-education propaganda" and "racially-biased information" and they've been physically harassed, maced, and assaulted by guards.
This isn't the first time the D.C. jail system has been accused of inhumane living conditions. In November 2021, the ACLU announced that due to a legal victory, the U.S. Marshall Service transferred 400 residents to a prison in Pennsylvania after finding inhumane conditions and treatment at the jail.
The D.C. Auditor has repeatedly cited the system for having
inoperable plumbing fixtures, a leaking roof, peeling paint on metal desks, door frames, tables, and bed frames, water penetration through walls, and damaged shower stalls. Aramark also reportedly failed to keep food contact surfaces clean, held food at improper temperatures, and failed to control pests in the culinary area.
But it may be the first time that inmates requested transfer to our country's most notorious prison for terrorists, as the inmates wrote,
We hereby request to spend our precious and limited days, should the government continue to insist on holding us captive unconstitutionally as pre-trial detainees to be transferred and reside at Guantanamo Bay, [which provides] nutritional meals, routine sunlight exposure, top notch medical care, is respectful of religious requirements, has centers for exercise/entertainment.
While most of the January 6 participants have been processed, these 34 are charged with more serious crimes like assaulting police officers, and even if at some point they ever go to trial and it is proven that they did commit crimes, there's still the 8th Amendment and the whole cruel and unusual punishment prohibition to consider.
Of course, this is Washington D.C. we're talking about. They hate the Constitution there.
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