Last week, Amnesty International in Slovakia revealed that three men released from Guantánamo to Slovakia in January had embarked on a hunger strike to protest about the conditions in which they are being held. Pending relocation, the men have been held since their arrival in a detention center in Medved’ov, in the south west of Slovakia, and the spokesman for the three, Adel Fattough Ali El-Gazzar, a former Egyptian army officer, “described their living conditions as poor — having only beds and a sink at their disposal and being allowed to leave their rooms for only an hour per day.” In addition, he explained that they “are not allowed contact with anyone except for personnel in the facility and their lawyer.”

The Slovak authorities denied El-Gazzar’s claims, but on Saturday Tomas Vasilko, a Slovakian journalist, told me that he had spoken to El-Gazzar by phone, and provided a further explanation of why he and the other men are so frustrated. “He was really upset about the conditions they live in here,” Vasilko explained, adding, “He told me that firstly, in Guantánamo, the Slovak delegation didn’t mention the word detention — they told them that they would be free with some restrictions. When they arrived in Slovakia they told them they had to stay in a detention facility for asylum seekers for six months, but after that they would get a house in a town with a Muslim community. But one month ago they told the men that plan had changed and they would go to another detention facility for another six months. He was really frustrated and that’s the reason why they started the hunger strike.”

In an article published in the Slovak newspaper SME (mentioned and quoted from in an English language article in the Slovak Spectator), Tomas Vasilko added that, in his phone conversation with El-Gazzar, the Egyptian had reiterated his complaints, and had also described the conditions in which he and the other two former Guantánamo prisoners were living as “a 100-percent prison.” “Even in Guantánamo it was better,” El-Gazzar told Vasilko. “We could communicate with everyone, here we cannot.” He added, “Now, I think the best way would be to leave Slovakia. We want our freedom, we are not criminals, and we are not here illegally.”

Via Tomas Vasilko’s article, the Slovak Spectator also explained more about the plans to move the men to another detention camp, which had caused them such anguish. El-Gazzar stated that they were told they would stay in the detention center in Medved’ov for six months, but had recently been informed that they “are to be transferred to Zvolen where they will spend another six months in a facility for asylum seekers.”

El-Gazzar also pointed out that the conditions in which they are being held are noticeably worse than in other countries in which former prisoners have been released. As the Slovak Spectator described it, he “said they are in contact with other Guantánamo detainees who were transferred to other countries such as Hungary, who have said they are free to move about and have received proper accommodation and financial support.”

In my communication with Tomas Vasilko, he asked me about these claims, and a version of the following interview appeared in his article at the weekend:

Tomas Vasilko: What do you think about the conditions in which the men are currently held?

Andy Worthington: Former prisoners need support and care, especially if, as with the men in Slovakia, they’re alone in a new and unknown country. I have to say that from the moment I heard that they were being held in a detention center, I didn’t think that it sounded like the most supportive kind of environment, and I very much hope that, with the spotlight on the Slovak government following the announcement of the hunger strike, senior officials will move swiftly to rehouse the men in more appropriate conditions.

Tomas Vasilko: They say the restrictions at Medved’ov are worse than in Cuba.

Andy Worthington: Given what Adel said about expecting to be rehoused, I can understand how this would be very upsetting. I think five months is more than enough time for the government to find them better accommodation, and would suggest that the impression given by this long delay is that the government doesn’t care much about the needs of these men. I’m not saying that’s the case; just that it’s the impression given.

Tomas Vasilko: Adel El-Gazzar says that in other countries the men were free from the beginning, and have been provided with housing. Can you confirm this?

Andy Worthington: It is certainly true that in Belgium, France, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland (and Bermuda and Palau), the men have been given houses immediately and help with integrating into society. I believe this is the case in Bulgaria, Georgia and Hungary as well, and in Spain, a Palestinian who arrived in February is currently in a hotel, awaiting the availability of a house. Only in Albania, from what I understand, are the men in some kind of refugee center.

Tomas Vasilko: El-Gazzar also says that the United States provides money to look after the men — apparently up to 1,000 Euros per person. Do you have any information about this?

Andy Worthington: I don’t know about the men being given money personally, as I haven’t heard about that, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. As for the figure of 1000 Euros a month from the US for looking after them, that seems plausible, although this is money that would be given to the government to provide accommodation and support for them — and if this is what has happened in Slovakia, of course, then the government so far appears to have done very little to justify the provision of those funds.

In an update yesterday, Tomas Vasilko addressed another of the men’s complaints — and the only one conceded by government officials. On Friday, I explained that a representative of Amnesty International Slovensko had told the dpa news agency that the men not only “felt isolated and badly looked after,” but were also concerned because, after five months, their legal status “was still not clear.” I also explained that Bernard Priecel, the chief officer at the Interior Ministry’s Migration Bureau, conceded that “the lack of clarity on their legal status could be a burden for them,” and quoted the dpa news agency as stating, “At the moment they [are] simply foreigners, without asylum seeker status,” even though, when they arrived in Slovakia in January, Interior Minister Robert Kalinak had “promised that their residence permit status would be cleared up quickly.”

Yesterday, Tomas Vasilko informed me that the men have just met with the Slovak chief of UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), who explained that the men had asked for asylum two months ago. According to Slovak law, this means that they are supposed to receive an answer within 90 days, so that the government has one more month to respond.

This is progress of a sort, but it still remains apparent, as it did last week, that whether through individual inertia on the part of the Slovak government, through a failure on the part of the EU, or through a failure on the part of the US government, which bears the primary responsibility for securing the men’s welfare, something is not entirely right when, five months after arriving in Slovakia from Guantánamo, Adel El-Gazzar and his two companions have had to resort to extreme measures to try to sort out their status in their new home country, even though this is something that should surely have taken place before their arrival.

Andy Worthington, a regular contributor to The Public Record, is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and the definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009. He maintains a blog at andyworthington.co.uk.