Washington, DC – The Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba celebrates its 23rd anniversary on Saturday.
For Mansoor Adayfi, a former prison inmate, this anniversary marks 23 years of “injustice, anarchy, abuse of power, torture and indefinite detention”.
Only 15 prisoners remain at the U.S. military prison, known as Gitmo, that once held about 800 Muslim men — a declining number that gives advocates hope the facility will eventually be closed, turning the page of the dark chapter of history that it represents. .
But Adayfi, who is now the Guantanamo Project coordinator at the advocacy group CAGE International, says that truly shutting down Gitmo means providing justice for its current and former detainees.
“The United States must acknowledge its wrongdoing and issue a formal and official apology to the victims, to the survivors,” Adayfi told Al Jazeera. “There must be reparation, compensation and accountability. »
Guantanamo opened in 2002 to house prisoners from the so-called “war on terror,” a response to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Detainees have been arrested around the world on suspicion of having links to al-Qaeda and other groups. Many endured horrific torture in secret detention centers, known as black sites, before being transferred to Guantanamo.
At Gitmo, detainees had few legal rights. Even those allowed to be released through Guantanamo’s alternative justice system, known as military commissions, remained imprisoned for years without any recourse to challenge their detention.
Thus, the prison has become synonymous with the worst abuses committed by the American government since 9/11.
In recent weeks, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has accelerated the transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo, before the end of his mandate on January 20.
On Monday, the US government released 11 Yemeni detainees and resettled them in Oman. Last month, two detainees were transferred to Tunisia and Kenya.
‘Mad’
Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security and Human Rights (SWHR) program at Amnesty International USA, said closing the facility was possible.
She added that the remaining detainees could be transferred to other countries or to the United States, where they would go through the American justice system.
Congress in 2015 banned the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to American soil. But Eviatar believes the White House can work with lawmakers to lift the ban, especially with such a small number of prisoners remaining at the facility.
“It’s a symbol of anarchy, of Islamophobia,” Eviatar said of Guantanamo.
“This is a total violation of human rights. For the United States, which has detained so many people for so long without rights, without charge or trial, this is simply horrible. And the fact that this is still happening today, 23 years later, is insane. »
Barack Obama made closing the prison one of his main promises when he ran for president in 2008, but after taking office his plans faced strong Republican opposition. Near the end of his second term, Obama expressed regret for not closing the facility early in his presidency.
Of the 15 remaining Gitmo detainees, three are eligible for release, according to the Pentagon. Three more people can appear before the Guantanamo Periodic Review Board, which assesses whether detainees can be transferred safely.
“We still hope that President Biden will be able to transfer more detainees before leaving office,” Eviatar told Al Jazeera.
While President-elect Donald Trump has previously pledged to keep the prison open, Eviatar said he might view the facility as ineffective.
Plea agreements
But the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker social justice advocacy group, stressed the urgency for Biden to act before Trump takes office.
“While President-elect Trump is strongly opposed to closing Guantanamo, the need for President Biden to close the prison is more urgent than ever,” said Devra Baxter, program assistant for militarism and human rights. man at FCNL, in a press release.
“Closing Guantanamo will only be accomplished by transferring the remaining three men who have not yet been charged with a crime and finalizing plea deals with those who have been.”
However, rather than entering into plea deals for the detainees, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to void deals for three 9/11 suspects, which had been made with military prosecutors to spare the prisoners the death penalty. , in exchange for guilty pleas.
The courts are now weighing the validity of the agreements and Austin’s veto against them.
Eviatar said Austin’s efforts to derail plea deals amounted to political interference.
“It’s a very strange situation. I don’t understand why the Biden administration, which says it wants to close Guantanamo, would then ask the Secretary of Defense to intervene and end the plea deals. This doesn’t make any sense.
CAGE’s Adayfi said the plea deal debacle shows there is no functioning justice system at Guantanamo.
“It’s a big joke,” he said. “There is no justice at Guantanamo. There is no law. There is absolutely nothing. This is one of the greatest human rights violations of the 21st century.”
Adayfi added that the United States can have its ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights or Guantanamo, but not both.
“I believe they have Guantanamo,” he said.
