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E-mail a friendYOUNG VOICES
Guantanamo in St. Paul
It is 10 feet long, about 7 feet wide and 8 feet high. It is outfitted with a steel toilet, fluorescent lights and a “Counter Terror With Justice” logo. And since Monday, the life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay prison cell has been sitting on the corner of 7th and Walnut in downtown St. Paul, just in time for the Republican National Convention.
Visitors to the cell have an opportunity to sit locked inside of the cell, experience what it's like to be alone inside with the sliding metal door closed behind them, then take action.
Many have signed a petition to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba and others have recorded videos about the experience. A couple of those videos have been uploaded to YouTube (see here and here).
“It forces them to think,” says Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, the organization that is bringing Guantanamo Bay to St. Paul. “It forces them to think about what it means to be locked inside a box,” Cox adds, “with no idea when or if” they will be released.
St. Paul is the latest stop for the national tour of the replica, which visited the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week.
One visitor to the St. Paul display, who signed the petition and talked to the Amnesty International representatives, refused to actually walk inside the cell.
“Bad memories,” says Gabriel, a St. Paul resident. The 24-year-old, who says he served five months in county jail, adds that his “holding cell was way bigger than this one.”