“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire” – Tielhard de Chardin
Guantanamo Bay represents a wide array of human rights violations, including: torture, extraordinary rendition, arbitrary (and therefore illegal) detention, denial of fair trials and the right to challenge detainment (habeas corpus). In the process, Guantanamo Bay deprives individuals of their humanity by subjecting them to cruel and degrading punishment. – Amnesty International.
“The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a controversial United States detention center operated by Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002 in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The detainment areas consist of three camps in the base: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray (which has been closed). The facility is often referred to as Guantanamo, or Gitmo (derived from the abbreviation “GTMO”). The detainees currently held as of June 2008 have been classified by the United States as “enemy combatants” After claims were made that these prisoners were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this interpretation on 29 June 2006. Following this, on July 7, 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners will in the future be entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions.
Since the beginning of the current war in Afghanistan, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 420 of which have been released without charge.
As of May 2008, approximately 270 detainees remain. More than a fifth are cleared for release but may have to wait months or years because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to persuade countries to accept them, according to officials and defense lawyers. Of the roughly 355 still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest.
On February 9, 2008, it was reported that 6 of the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility would be tried for conspiracy in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In May 2008, the Pentagon claimed that 36 former Guantanamo inmates were “confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorism”
http://action.amnesty.org.au/hrs/comments/guantanamo_cell_launched_in_usa/
Cilla
4 comments
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June 25, 2008 at 8:12 pm
jack
Wow not what I expected, I was pleasantly suprised when I saw “Decide for yourself” and “Awareness is bliss.” I thought there might actually be an actual discussion of the wrongs, how we got here, and what might make it right; only to find a series of quotes pasted together where the math doesn’t even match (775 – 420 = 350, yet the next sentence says 270 and the following 335). Why bother representing this post as a discussion, just say what you feel about GTMO with researching the “why” or the “how”so anyone seriously researching this can avoid your bias and spend time learning the facts.
It is interesting when you compare two studies on GTMO – the Seton Hall report and the report by Westpoint’s Terrorism Study Center. The Seton Hall report is written by law students working for a professor who represents detainees and the West Point study written by Army cadets – the biases here are obvious, but when read together the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Perhaps a serious discussion about the issues might change some ideas.
Compare Amnesty’s description with the US Government’s of detainee treatment and if the truth is somewhere in the middle there then??? Oh yeah, when’s Amnesty going to do something about China, Myanmar, Africa, South America…… and so on??? They count on people who take their word, vice research for themselves, to take up their inflated claims and make them truth, very Orwellian (the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams. Double plus good). Thanks Big Brother. If you do decide to research just see how many citations go back to Amnesty, or groups run by or that support lawyers for the detainees as sources. It is alot easier to shape the truth when you control the media.
June 26, 2008 at 8:26 am
Cilla
Hi Jack,
Thank you for your comment.
If you are confused about the aim of this blog, you may wish to read the ‘About’ page.
Know that I have no intention nor desire what-so-ever to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
C.
February 27, 2009 at 5:06 am
Quebecois
j’aimerais savoir pourquoi matrété vous c’est personne je crois qu’ils son des homme hummain comme vous aussi alors arrêter çà la prison c’est juste une correction pas de traiter des homme n’importe comment je crois que les annimaux sont plus mieux qu’eux alors pas de violance
June 11, 2009 at 5:41 am
Jason
you now what bugs me the most is when pres. obama thinks he can close a military base that has been here for years that has kept the most evil people in the world away from us and think that putting those people in our prisons that is wrong just plain wrong i cant believe we as a american people has forgot what happen to us on september 11 those people whose lives were not just lost but taken away from them we need Guantanamo Bay open