On 21st January 2009 the world’s eyes were turned to the White House. It was Obama’s first day in Office, and what a productive day it was. In a flurry of activity, a number of jobs were ticked off the Presidential list. Obama followed up on his campaign pledge to shut Guantánamo Bay, by signing an executive order to close the detention centre by January 2010.
And yet, three years on, it has become tragically clear that this celebrated signature deserved as much veneration as a two day old Willow stamp. On your forehead. Guantánamo Bay remains open, continuing to symbolise a decade of damage to human rights.
Since Guantánamo Bay opened in 2002, 779 detainees have been held within the 45 square miles of land and water which make up the US military base. Of that 779, the majority have been released with only 172 remaining in the camp. This figure indicates that the majority of men detained were not only cleared of terrorist involvement, but deemed safe enough to be reintegrated into society.
Indeed, exposure of the ‘Guantánamo Files’ in April last year confirmed the flimsy nature of the evidence on which many of the captives were initially detained. Amongst the innocents transferred to the camp was a 14 year old victim of a Taliban kidnap.
An institution which has repeatedly been proven to disregard fundamental civil liberties cannot continue to remain open.
I believe that it is the right of an authority to detain an individual suspected of criminal action. And there are men held captive in Guantánamo Bay who should be brought to justice for their participation in extremist organisations.
However, after ten whole years, out of the 172 prisoners that remain, 167 are still being held without a trial and many have never even been charged with a crime. Yet there is an entire law enforcement system in the United States that has essentially been ready and waiting since September 2001 to bring those individuals to justice.
So why is it, that after a decade of detentions, only six detainees (one less, by the way, than the number of prosecutors who have resigned over the system’s unfairness) have been transferred to the USA for prosecution in a normal federal court?
It is, ostensibly, in the name of intelligence gathering – something which has an essential role to play in the war against terror. However, the shameful methods which officials have previously used at Guantánamo to gather intelligence are not only a deplorable blight against humanity, but an ineffective method. Previous torture allegations include perverse techniques such as the smearing of detainees with the fake menstrual blood of female soldiers. It takes only common sense to realise that torture and neglect will produce enemies or disconsolate victims who are unlikely to comply.
Yet there is no end in sight for any of the captives. On 31st December 2011, Obama signed The National Defence Authorization Act, under which certain provisions allows for indefinite military detention and torture. If Obama wants to salvage anything of his self-proclaimed “most important values and traditions” of his country, he must put an end to the perpetual violation of civil liberties which Guantánamo Bay has come to stand for over the last ten years.
This article originally appeared in Nouse, the University of York’s student newspaper.