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Unhappy Anniversary Guantanamo

By possum

Today, January 11, 2009, marks the seventh anniversary of the transfer of the first 20 detainees to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

Today, about 250 men remain, most of whom have been there for nearly seven years, in a detention system that has significantly damaged America's reputation around the world.

Now the heat is on the Obama administration to close Guantanamo Bay early in their term of office.

habacuc_1988, Flickr, Creative Commons

Since the first detainees were sent to Guantanamo we have witnessed an ongoing series of tales of abuse and torture of the prisoners.  Court case after court case has been lost by the Bush administration as the detainees were given legal rights.  One group of seventeen Chinese Uighurs remain in detention in spite of having been declared no longer of interest.

They were living together in a Uighur camp in Afghanistan and when the US-led coalition bombing campaign began in October 2001, a group of them fled into the mountains. Arab travelers promised to take them to a safe house in Pakistan, but instead turned them over to Pakistani authorities who, in turn, handed them over to the United States - reportedly for large bounties. They have been in US custody ever since.

There are many others remaining in custody without proper legal recourse.

   * An estimated 60 detainees who have already been cleared for release or transfer - in some cases years ago - but remain at Guantanamo because they cannot be returned home, the United States has refused to admit them onto its soil, and no third country has been willing to accept them.
   * Eighteen detainees who face pending charges before the Guantanamo-based military commissions.
   * One detainee serving a life sentence for terrorism-related crimes.
   * Two detainees - Omar Khadr and Mohammad Jawad - who were children when they were brought to Guantanamo. Khadr is now 22 and Jawad is now either 22 or 23. They are both facing trial before military commissions, and Khadr's trial is currently scheduled to begin on January 26.
   * Two detainees - Lakhdar Boumedienne and Saber Lahmar, both Algerian citizens and former residents of Bosnia - who won their habeas cases when a federal court judge ruled that they were being unlawfully detained. They remain in Guantanamo because they cannot return to Algeria for fear of torture, and the Bush administration will not accept them in the United States.
   * Sixteen "high-value" detainees who were transferred from secret CIA detention facilities - "black sites" - to Guantanamo; 14 of them were transferred in September 2006, and two of them at later points in time. These men were reportedly tortured or otherwise abused in CIA custody, including the acknowledged "waterboarding" (mock drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri.
   * Approximately 230 detainees who are being held without charge, including close to 100 Yemenis; the others are from various countries, including: Algeria, Canada, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.

The existence of Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers such as the one at Bagram in Afghanistan have undermined the moral standing of the United States around the world.  The sooner these detentions come to an end and the detainees are either charged and tried in a court of law or are released the better.

Human Rights Watch and other organizations call upon President elect Obama and his administration to take the following steps to take the following actions as a beginning toward restoring U.S. standing in the world.

   *  Close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
   * Abolish the military commissions and prosecute terrorist suspects in federal court.
   * Reject preventive detention (detention without trial) as an alternative to prosecuting terrorist suspects.
   * Reject the "global war on terror" as the basis for detaining terrorist suspects.
   * Issue an executive order to implement the ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
   * End the CIA detention program.
   * Prohibit renditions to torture.
   * Account for past abuses.
   * Provide redress for abuse.
   * Repudiate presidential directives and Justice Department memos that permit torture and other abuses.
   * Protect innocent victims of persecution abroad from being defined as terrorists.

It is by fighting fair and in an open and legal manner we may find solutions to the worldwide problems of terrorism.  So long as detainees continue to be abused we increase the resistance and foster future acts of terrorism.

ThomasHawk, Flickr, Creative Commons

Peace.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on January 11, 2009 (boomark / email).