Legal Niches

Flash Game Takes on In-Custody Immigrant Death

By pete_gallagher

The Homeland Guantanamos website offers an embedded Flash game designed to highlight the plight of immigrant detainees in U.S. custody.

Users will take on the role of a journalist posing undercover as an Immigrant Detention Center Guard in order to solve the death of 52-year old Guinea immigrant Boubacar Bah. A friendly detainee inside will aid the investigation as you tour the facility in search of clues.

The game is based on true events—Bah was a real detainee at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey (which the game models the detainee center after) and died in custody on May 30, 2007.

A video report from the New York Times on Bah's death claims that following a fall, believed to have taken place in a bathroom, he was found unconscious. Bah later briefly regained consciousness and was taken to a medical center, where he became agitated. He was shackled and put in solitary confinement, where he again became unresponsive. 15 hours after his fall, Bah was rushed into emergency brain surgery. His family was not notified until five days after the fall. Bah was in a coma for four months before eventually dying.

The website estimates that 300,000 legal and illegal immigrants are currently in custody in the U.S. and that 87 immigrants have died in custody since 2003.

The game was developed by Free Range Studios for the human rights organization Breakthrough.

The New York Times video was just one-part of a series of reports on in-custody deaths of immigrants in the U.S.

Via ArtThreat.net

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).