Since he first ran for President, Barack Obama has repeatedly promised to close Guantanamo Bay, but nearly eight years later, the extrajudicial detention facility remains as open as ever, in blatant defiance of the Constitution.
Guantanamo Bay was established in 2002, 5 months after the tragic events of 9/11, created to indefinitely detain and interrogate prisoners of war, away from the public eye, without the need of a trial.
Since the prison’s creation, 775 people have been captured by the United States and transferred to Guantanamo, or sent to the facility by ‘allies’ of the US. Only three out of every 116 prisoners in Gitmo were directly captured by US forces, the remaining detainees were given to America by Pakistani and Afghani forces, including various warlords and despots, who used the bounty placed on enemy combatants to send political prisoners to the US, instead of Al Qaeda operatives. This means many prisoners are entirely innocent, but are held indefinitely, as detainees are not given trials. 86% of detainees were delivered to the US due to a bounty created by the Government, which was described to many, including poor Afghan villagers as, ‘’Millions of dollars, enough to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life.’’
One of the many victims of the United States’s bounty was Murat Kurnaz, a 19 year old Turkish citizen finishing his pilgrimage, on his way to Germany, when he was pulled of a bus by Pakistani police and given to the American forces. Kunaz later learned the Pakistani police were awarded the bounty for his capture. After being kicked, beaten and starved by American soldiers in an Afghanistan prison, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. While in Guantanamo, Kunaz was interrogated about Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, neither of whom he was affiliated with or had any knowledge of, and was beaten regularly, as well as locked in a windowless freezing cell, where he contracted hypothermia. Kurnaz was kept awake for three weeks, and tortured when he passed out. He claims to have witnessed guards murdering rebellious inmates by poisoning their food, the United States alleges that all three inmates committed suicide with pills simultaneously. Kurnaz spent a total of five years in Guantanamo Bay before being released, not because of the US government recognized his innocence, but because Germany put political pressure on the United States to release Kurnaz, who was not given any form of compensation for his suffering.
26 Guantanamo Bay detainees have already been cleared for release by the government, yet are still imprisoned for no apparent reason. Another 28 prisoners being held have no evidence to be prosecuted, but are still considered to be too much of a threat to society to release. Children as young as 13 have been held, without trial or evidence at the facility. One such child, Yasser Talal Al Zahrani, was brought to the Guantanamo when he was 16, and was held for five years before he took his own life. The 26 inmates held in Gitmo who have been cleared for release cost the taxpayer 104.4 million dollars, if held in a federal prison, the prisoners would cost less than 1 million dollars to contain.
At Guantanamo Bay, as evidenced by a Report released in 2015, inmates were subjected to ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, a fancy phrase for torture, in which inmates, many of whom innocent of all wrongdoing, were waterboarded, mock executed, deprived of sleep for weeks on end, placed in solitary confinement, and hung by their ankles while beaten, all of which violates International Law. As of now, nine prisoners have died in the facility. Guantanamo Bay is an affront to everything America stands for, detaining and torturing captives without trial, ruining the lives of innocents, and further providing fuel to the hatred of America overseas. Close Guantanamo Bay. Give the inmates fair and public trials, house them in America, not hidden from the public, and for fucks sake stop torturing them, not only does it violate the eighth amendment, but it brings shame on America as a whole.
