Despite President Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to close down the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, it is still open, and conditions have deteriorated so much that prisoners are engaging in a hunger strike. While the Obama administration contends that 41 prisoners are participating, the detainees’ lawyers report that the number is closer to 130 of the 166 prisoners.
The strikes began in February after prison guards began searching detainees’ Qurans for weapons. But with only nine out of the current 166 prisoners having been charged or convicted of a crime, the detainees shifted the purpose of the strike to protest their indefinite detention.
In 2005, when over 500 prisoners were being detained, a hunger strike was held to protest these same violations of international law, leading to the Detainee Treatment Act — a document with nonspecific provisions that remains loosely interpreted and unenforced.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, asserted that the indefinite detention of the detainees “is in clear breach … of international law” and “severely undermines the United States’ stance” as “an upholder of human rights.” The majority of prisoners at Guantánamo are held in solitary confinement, and grotesque violence and degradation are reportedly common. Guards have beaten prisoners without provocation, cut them and urinated on them.
Some of Obama’s defenders blame the lack of progress in closing Guantánamo on a partisan Congress. However, the president has the ability to either close Guantánamo through an executive order or to transfer prisoners with a national security waiver.
With these powers at his disposal, Obama’s deliberate choice not to exercise them clearly indicates that he wants to keep the prison open. This marks one of the most drastic and disappointing differences between Obama as president and Obama as a senator.
The 2005 hunger strike of more than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay led to an act that prohibited the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” of any prisoner. The only humane response to the hunger strike is not more laws the U.S. government can trample over, but the shutdown of Guantánamo Bay once and for all.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, April 8 print edition. Email the WSN Editorial Board at [email protected].
jonny levin • May 5, 2013 at 8:36 pm
NYU to Open Guantanamo Bay Campus:
http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/bea5d5a711/nyu-to-open-guantanamo-bay-campus
Asian • May 1, 2013 at 4:26 pm
This is a difficult issue. Honestly, the Bay prison is probably not morally justified, I agree, but the media does blow it out of proportion sometimes. The U.S. for all its faults treat its prisoners at least somewhat better than the Muslim world does.
Keeping them may sound bad and awful, yeah…but releasing them, out of pity for their “hunger strikes”? Would that really make us any safer? Some countries suffer terrorist attacks every week, like India and Pakistan. Just be glad we’re not one of them…yet.
RandyZ2063 • Apr 11, 2013 at 9:35 am
Agreed with the other commenters thus far.
Guantanamo is legal in accordance with the treaties that the U.S. has ratified. That’s a fact.
The detainees can go home when the war is over. While that’s harsh for ordinary people, it must be remembered that the detainees still support their side of the war. They don’t want the war to end until their side has the advantage. That’s even true of 99% of those we’ve already released. It would be truly bizarre to be letting them all go.
Montgomery Granger • Apr 9, 2013 at 11:03 am
I agree with Mr. Duke. The military detention facility at Gitmo is the finest and most transparent such facility on the planet. ICRC physicians said to me back in 2002 during my assignment there that “nobody does [detention operations] better than the United States.” This same phrase was repeated to me while I was serving at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, after the scandal, by a different ICRC physician I worked with. The unlawful combatant detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are treated with dignity and respect and within the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare, which were written by-the-way to protect innocent civilians in time of war, not to protect those who would pretend to be civilians in order to murder them. According to Geneva, even lawful combatant POWs may be held “until the end of hostilities.” That is legally and morally NOT “indefinite detention.”
Mister Duke • Apr 8, 2013 at 4:57 pm
This silly diatribe wouldn’t even merit the time wasted in reply if not for the one kernel of truth within the whole asinine waste of words. Despite presenting no verifiable facts, the author…like a blind squirrel…has stumbled upon a nut. The only glimpse of sanity in this preposterous mess is the fact that Guantanamo Bay will not be closed. And not because us “evil” Americans just love to torture the poor innocent lambs currently detained in Club Gitmo. The hardcore jihadists are being coddled with three meals a day, beautiful weather, plenty of recreation time on a new soccer pitch, plenty of korans and reading materials, video games, television, etc. Quite unlike the niceties of Islamic life like live beheadings, stoning of rape victims, repression of women and girls, etc. Bottom line: Guantanamo will not be closed, jihadists will remain detained, and lives are being saved from their depredations as a result.