Guantanamo Bay detainee uniforms

Detainees are typically issued one of two uniforms, either a white jumpsuit if the prisoner has been labeled "compliant", or an orange jumpsuit if the detainee has been labeled "non-compliant".{{Cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_hwang/20050704.html |author=Rosa Hwang |author-link=Rosa Hwang |title=Inside Guantanamo Bay |publisher=CBC News |date=July 4, 2005 |accessdate=2008-09-19 }}{{Cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4422825.stm |date= 8 April 2005 |title=Inside Guantanamo's secret trials |author=Adam Brookes |author-link=Adam Brookes |publisher=BBC News |accessdate=2008-09-19 }}{{Cite web |work=National Geographic |date=April 2005 |url=http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature8/gallery3.html |title=Detention Controversy |accessdate=2008-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071203192749/http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature8/gallery3.html |archive-date=2007-12-03 |url-status=dead }} The uniforms were supplied by a firm in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina.{{cite news |last1=Collins |first1=Kristin |title="North Carolina firm supplies uniforms for war prisoners |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/evansville-courier-and-press-north-carol/167729217/ |access-date=13 March 2025 |work=Evansville Courier and Press |date=January 13, 2002 |location=Evansville, Indiana |page=12}}

When the detainees face Combatant Status Review Tribunals or Administrative Review Board hearings, they were frequently asked to explain their uniforms to the overseeing officer, and they were considered a point in favor of further detaining or releasing the prisoner.{{citation needed |date=March 2025}}

In his testimony during his 2006 Administrative Review Board hearing, Khirullah Khairkhwa described being issued a black uniform when guards (falsely) came to believe he was contemplating suicide.{{cite web |url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Reading_Room/Detainee_Related/ARB_Transcript_2397-2490.pdf#34-44 |title=Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings for ISN 579 |author=OARDEC |publisher=United States Department of Defense |date=June 2006 |pages=34–44 |accessdate=2007-10-07 |archive-date=2016-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161218203209/http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Reading_Room/Detainee_Related/ARB_Transcript_2397-2490.pdf#34-44 |url-status=dead }}

Once insurgents began capturing and in some cases executing foreigners in Iraq, there was a tendency to dress them in the same orange jumpsuits as their own forces were being dressed in when delivered to Guantanamo Bay.{{cite news|author1=Edward Wong|author2=James Glanz|title=THE REACH OF WAR: THE INSURGENTS; South Korean Is Killed in Iraq By His Captors|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/23/world/the-reach-of-war-the-insurgents-south-korean-is-killed-in-iraq-by-his-captors.html|work=New York Times|date=June 23, 2004|quote=In all the recent beheadings, the victims were wearing orange shirts similar to prison jumpsuits. Some analysts have speculated that the jumpsuits are meant to evoke the humiliations of Muslim men at the Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.}} This has been considered by some to be a sign of the insurgents inflicting the same humiliation and dehumaization on their captives, or a protest against Guantanamo detainees being held without trial.{{cite news |last1=Lamothe |first1=Dan |title=Once again, militants use Guantanamo-inspired orange suit in an execution |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/08/28/once-again-militants-use-guantanamos-orange-jumpsuit-in-an-execution/ |access-date=13 March 2025 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=August 28, 2014}}{{cite book |last1=Richey |first1=Patrick G. |last2=Edwards |first2=Michaela |editor1-last=Krona |editor1-first=Michael |editor2-last=Pennington |editor2-first=Rosemary |title=The Media World of ISIS |date=2019 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=9780253045935 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOO4DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Guantanamo+Bay%22+orange&pg=PT175 |access-date=13 March 2025 |chapter=Chapter 8. It's More Than Orange. ISIS's Appropriation of Orange Prison Jumpsuits as Rhetorical Resistance}}

On March 16, 2006, Secretary of State legal adviser John B. Bellinger III gave a digital press conference in which he dismissed the view that all the prisoners were being held in orange jumpsuits, stating "Very few people wear orange jump suits anymore, and yet that is the image that is being left with people all around the world, that everybody in Guantanamo is wearing an orange jump suit."{{Cite web |url=http://germany.usembassy.gov/germany/bellinger_dvc.html |publisher=United States Department of State |author=John B. Bellinger III |author-link=John B. Bellinger III |date=March 13, 2006 |title=Digital Video Press Conference with John B. Bellinger III, Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060923032514/http://germany.usembassy.gov/germany/bellinger_dvc.html |archivedate=September 23, 2006 }} It has been described as "a symbol of American global power" being imposed outside national and international laws and conventions,{{cite book |last1=Ash |first1=Juliet |title=Dress Behind Bars: Prison Clothing as Criminality |date=2009 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9780857732170 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LJ-LDwAAQBAJ |access-date=13 March 2025}} and, when used by ISIS, as a symbol of Western imperialism.

A number of protests against the prison camp have seen activists dress in the iconic orange jumpsuits to draw attention to the issue.{{Cite web |url=http://www.artistsnetwork.org/news16/news766.html |title=The World can't wait -- drive out the Bush regime |accessdate=July 18, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180221100419/http://www.artistsnetwork.org/news16/news766.html |archive-date=February 21, 2018 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2007/01/359615.html |date=January 11, 2007 |title=Guantanamo Bay 5th Anniversary 'Celebrations' |publisher=Indymedia |accessdate=July 18, 2007 }}{{Cite web |title=Five Years of Guantanamo |publisher=National Guantanamo Coalition |url=http://www.guantanamo.org.uk/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/agid,23/year,2007/month,01/day,11/Itemid,51/ |accessdate=July 18, 2007 }} In May 2006, a Turkish judge barred Loai al-Saqa, a suspected terrorist, from being brought into his own trial, because he chose to wear an orange jumpsuit for the hearing, demonstrative of his solidarity with those in Guantanamo, and his intentions to protest or resist legal authority.{{Cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5006728.stm |date=May 22, 2006 |publisher=BBC |title=Judge bars 'Guantanamo jumpsuit' |accessdate=2008-09-19 }}

Image:Animatronic depiction of waterboarding from Coney Island.jpg|Artist Steve Powers's Animatronic "Waterboarding thrill ride" at Coney Island.

Image:Two detainees in white stand in the doorway of their bay in Camp 4..jpg|Two detainees in white "uniforms" stand in the doorway of their bay in Camp 4.

Image:Detainees walk in an exercise yard in Camp 4.jpg|Detainees walk in an exercise yard in Camp 4.

Image:Camp four exercise yard - cropped.jpg|Detainees sit around the exercise yard in Camp 4, the medium security facility within Camp Delta at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

On June 15, 2008, the McClatchy News Service published a package of articles about Guantanamo. In a profile of Zia Khalid Najib they quoted

Abdul Jabar Sabit, Attorney General of Afghanistan.{{Cite news |url=http://detainees.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/6 |title=Guantanamo Inmate Database: Zia Khalid Najib |publisher=Miami Herald |author=Tom Lasseter |author-link=Tom Lasseter |date=June 15, 2008 |accessdate=2008-06-16 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620003804/http://detainees.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/6 |archivedate=2008-06-20 }} According to their report "...he was struck that detainees were classified into groups, marked in descending order from orange to white garb, by how well they behaved and not by whether they were suspected of terrorist or anti-American activities. ... This division did not have anything to do with the crimes attributed to them. Only their behavior in the prison was taken into account." According to the McClatchy package, some of the detainees with the most meaningful ties to terrorism had been released early, because they were compliant with the camp rules, while low-level or innocent men remained in detention because they had personality clashes with their guards.

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Incarceration}}

{{Types of law enforcement agencies}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guantanamo Captives' Uniforms}}

Category:Uniforms

Category:Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures