Human Rights Watch on the Tenth Anniversary of Guantanamo

 
Human Rights Watch Press release

January 6, 2012


On January 11, 2002, the United States brought the first 20 prisoners to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, marking the beginning of a program of indefinite detention without charge or trial of terrorism suspects that has lasted 10 years.

Since then, a total of 779 prisoners have been held at the facility.

Provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012, passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, codify the practice of indefinite detention without trial into US law. This page is a compilation of selected Human Rights Watch reporting on Guantanamo and related matters over the past decade, as well as facts and figures comparing military commissions to federal courts.

Despite promises by Obama soon after his inauguration to close the facility, 171 prisoners remain.

Of the 779 detained in total, roughly 600 have been released and eight have died over the course of the past decade. Of the eight deaths, six are suspected suicides.

During the administration of President George W. Bush, many detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to painful stress positions; extended solitary confinement; threatening military dogs; threats of torture and death; and prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, cold, and noise that amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

When Obama took office in January 2009, about 242 prisoners remained.

Only a handful of the roughly 600 detainees released over the past 10 years were ever charged with a criminal offense.

Of the 171 prisoners that remain, the Obama administration has said it plans to prosecute 32, yet only one prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, currently faces any formal charges.

Another five, those accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks, have charges pending against them, but formal charges have yet to be brought and they have not been arraigned.

Of the remaining 139 prisoners, the administration has said it plans to detain 46 indefinitely without ever bringing charges against them. Another 89 detainees have been approved for transfer to home or third countries.

A variety of factors have prevented the release of those slated for transfer including inaction on the part of the Obama and Bush administrations, a moratorium placed on transfers to Yemen following the attempted bombing by a Yemeni of a US airliner on December 25, 2009, and restrictions placed by Congress on transfers from Guantanamo in December 2010. Fifty-six of the 89 detainees slated for transfer are from Yemen.

Ongoing US violations of detainee rights are not limited to Guantanamo.

Nearly 3,000 people now held by US forces in Afghanistan have not been afforded the basic rights that even captured enemy fighters are due in a civil war, such as being informed by a judge of the basis for their detention or allowed access to counsel. And individuals apprehended outside of Afghanistan currently detained there should never have been brought to the country at all.

Human Rights Watch opposes the prolonged indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. The practice violates US obligations under international law.

Human Rights Watch has strongly urged the US government to either promptly prosecute the remaining Guantanamo detainees according to international fair trial standards, or safely repatriate them to home or third countries.

We have also called for investigations of US officials implicated in torture of terrorism suspects and for adequate compensation for detainees who were mistreated.

Human Rights Watch will continue to press for compliance with these obligations. Failure to do so does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad.

“Para o ano em Jerusalém, capital das duas Nações”.

Em 29 de Novembro de 1947, a Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas adoptou, pela resolução 181, o Plano de Partilha da Palestina que consubstanciava a criação de dois estados independentes, um Árabe e outro Judeu ("Independent Arab and Jewish States") e para Jerusalém um regime especial ("Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem") sob administração das Nações Unidas.

Em 14 de Maio de 1948 foi declarada unilateralmente a independência de Israel.

Em 15 de Maio de 1948 cinco estados árabes – Egipto, Jordânia e Síria apoiados por contingentes da Arábia Saudita e do Iémen - dos sete estados (os outros dois eram o Líbano e o Iraque) que então compunham a Liga Árabe invadiram a Palestina.

Em 1977, passados 30 anos, a Assembleia Geral da ONU, "profundamente preocupada por não ter sido alcançada nenhuma solução para o problema da Palestina, e por este continuar a agravar o conflito no Médio Oriente, de que é o cerne, e a pôr em perigo a paz e a segurança internacionais adoptou a resolução 32/40 B em que se proclama o “Dia Internacional de Solidariedade com o Povo Palestino”, a celebrar em cada 29 de Novembro, convidando "todos os Governos e organizações a cooperar na implementação da presente resolução".

Hoje, passados que são outros 34 anos, sem que haja fim à vista para um conflito que se mantêm porque Israel pretende consolidar e expandir a sua colonização sobre os territórios palestinos ocupados, na construção do Grande Israel (Eratz Israel), celebramos mais um dia de solidariedade cheio de palavras mas vazio de acções concretas por parte da comunidade internacional.

Parafraseando o antigo voto judaico “Para o ano em Jerusalém”, digamos:

“Para o ano em Jerusalém, capital das duas Nações”.

Sextas-feiras da Liberdade, por Tariq Ramadan

Tariq Ramadan
February 25, 2011

Freedom Fridays

Today, more than ever, homage is due to the historical uprising of the Tunisian people. Millions of women and men overcame fear and faced down terror. The Egyptian people followed their example and brought down the despot.

While the regimes may still be in place, an irreversible, uncontrollable movement has begun. North Africa and the Middle East will never again be the same. Whatever the schemes of military and the Western powers for political, geopolitical and economic control, a new dynamic has been created. Non-violent, determined and courageous mass movements have shown that anything is possible, that History is now forging ahead in the Arab world and the Muslim majority countries. 

From now on, it will be impossible to silence the craving for freedom and to halt the onward march of liberation, even though setbacks and missteps may occur.

The people of Libya have now taken to the streets and, city after city, freed its country from the grip of the eccentric dictator of Tripoli. The despot’s madness, as cunning as it is unpredictable, has not yet spoken its last. But it is clear that he too will fall ; that Libya will be freed of the horrors of his long reign. 

He too stole, tortured, summarily eliminated, and lied. For more than forty years he cleverly manipulated, provoked and humiliated the Western powers. Today, his own people have courageously chosen to confront him empty-handed. 

It is a question of vital importance to salute them, encourage them, assist them and support them. 

There is little that can be done from outside. But the movement is gathering strength ; we must do all we can to convince our own authorities to take a clear and forthright position. It will not come a moment too soon ! For how dismal is the now-confirmed revelation of years of silence, hypocrisy and falsehood : the Orient now stands as a revealing and distorting mirror in which the craven policies of the United States, of Canada, of Europe and Australia are reflected. 

Today, the people in revolt are chanting not a word of reproach toward the West. It could do no better than shake itself out of its stupor, as the Arab world is now doing. Courageous self-criticism is worth far more than guilty silence. Wait not a moment longer !

In Yemen, Bahrain, and Iraq ; in Morocco, Algeria, Iran, and Jordan… peoples are calling out their desire for freedom and dignity. Expressed in their Friday gatherings, the power of the people defies description ; the symbolism is overwhelming, irresistible. Muslim women and Muslim men, praying together, give voice to the universal human aspiration for liberty, justice and dignity, for the power of sovereign people. 

For those who have, over the years, painted Muslims as impermeable to the ideals of liberty and democracy, and naturally inclined to violence—due to the very essence of Islam—the answer is clear-cut and unequivocal : tens of millions of Muslims, on these Fridays, have chosen the path of resistance, of sacrifice and of liberation in a spirit of non-violence, respect for life, without ever criticizing the West, its values and its betrayals. They have done so alongside Christians, Anglicans and Copts, alongside atheists, communists, and citizens of all beliefs and ideologies. What finer answer could there be to the simple-minded, racist analyses propagated by populist parties in the West? 

On Freedom Fridays, with its massive crowds coming together to pray in the name of resistance and liberty, we witness, in real time, Islam—and of Muslims—joining forces with liberty, justice and democratic principles. 

That the first European leader to have greeted the resisting peoples and called upon the dictators to leave was the Turkish Prime Minister should serve as a caustic reminder of the value of the short-sighted and tendentious analyses of the “Muslim world” that have long infested Western diplomacy and intellectual life.

The movement must not end here. We must hope that the peoples continue their onward march, that they completely free themselves from the yoke of the tyrants and complete their democratic revolution. 

The final word has not yet been spoken, either in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya or elsewhere, but the movement will surely prove stronger than those who are attempting to control it. Therein lies its power. 

It is essential that all the components of the pluralist opposition seize this historic occasion to dialogue, to establish common fronts representing civil society in order that army commanders do not turn the revolution to their advantage, or to the advantage of foreign political or economic powers. We must hope that governments pay heed. 

They must either implement thoroughgoing reform or leave the scene entirely, and make way for systems of government that respect the popular will, and that apply uncompromisingly the five basic and inalienable principles : the rule of law, equality of all citizens, universal suffrage, limited electoral terms (accountability) and the separation of powers. This is the imperative, and the minimum acceptable : without corruption, insider privilege, and in full independence.

We must hope that the movement continues to spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East…up to and including Israel, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his racist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman also be overthrown and with them, the interminable policy of colonization and non-respect of the dignity of the Palestinians and the Arab citizens of Israel.

On Freedom Fridays, everything is possible. Full of hope, with clear eyes, we must hail the march of the peoples and remind governments—whoever they may be, those of the tyrants or the shameless friends of those same tyrants—that nothing lasts forever, that despots and traitors can never be eternally shielded from their peoples, or from the judgment of History.