Detainees held at the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp are typically issued one of two uniforms, either a white jumpsuit if the prisoner has been labelled "compliant", or an orange jumpsuit

Jumpsuit

Jumpsuit originally referred to the utilitarian one-piece garments used by parachuters/skydivers, but has come to be used as a common term for any one-piece garment with sleeves and legs.-Use:...

 if the detainee has been labelled "non-compliant".

When the detainees face Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...

s or Administrative Review Board

Administrative Review Board

The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the suspects held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....

 hearings, they were frequently asked to explain their uniforms to the overseeing officer, and they were considered a point in favour of further detaining or releasing the prisoner.

Once insurgents

Iraqi insurgency

The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...

 began capturing foreigners in Iraq

Foreign hostages in Iraq

Table of contentsKey: Beginning in April 2004, members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign civilian hostages in Iraq. Since then, they have kidnapped more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens of foreign hostages have been killed. Nepal and the United States ...

, 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 - considered by some to be a sign of the insurgents "equating" the captures.

On March 16, 2006 Secretary of State

Secretary of State

Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

 legal adviser John B. Bellinger III

John B. Bellinger III

John B. Bellinger, III was the Legal Adviser to the United States Secretary of State. He was sworn in on April 8, 2005. He was the principal adviser on all domestic and international law matters to the Department of State, the Foreign Service, and the diplomatic and consular posts abroad...

 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..."

A number of protests against the prison camp have seen activists dress in the iconic orange jumpsuits to draw attention to the issue.
In May 2006, a Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 judge barred Loai al-Saqa

Loai al-Saqa

A Syrian member of al-Qaeda, Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa was convicted of masterminding and financing the 2003 Istanbul bombings, and in February 2007, was sentenced to life imprisonment without any chance of parole by the Turkish courts....

, 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.

In his testimony during his 2006 Administrative Review Board

Administrative Review Board

The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the suspects held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....

 hearing Khirullah Khairkhwa described being issued a black uniform when guards (falsely) came to believe he was contemplating suicide.

McClatchy report

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.
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."

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.