Guantanamo Bay: Case Studies and Rights Violations
By Ainsley Gill and Afek Shamir, 7/28/2020
By Ainsley Gill and Afek Shamir, 7/28/2020
Not Subject to the Constitution: Evading U.S. Domestic Law
Guantánamo Bay acts as an alternate reality for the United States as a place where the law is lose and sympathy is scarce. Considering that it is in Cuba, the U.S. government is able to hold detainees without consideration of habeas corpus: the right to a fair trial, as neither US nor international law is employed on the island.
Following the terror attacks of 9/11, the U.S government opened the Guantánamo detention camp as a tactical location where the law can be dismissed, or at the very least finessed, in order for terrorism suspects to be interrogated without any legal restraints. Originally a Bush administration initiative, the prison had 779 detainees over the years. The government planned to extract information from ‘enemy combatants’ in the War on Terror. CIA officers extract intelligence using various forms of torture, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, ruthless beatings and the use of freezing water.
Human rights groups relentlessly fight against Guantánamo, as they believe that the camp’s very existence is an immoral atrocity. Despite these concerns, the Bush administration regarded the camp as an indispensable asset to national security. Due to the fact that the detainees are classified as “unlawful enemy combatants”, who failed to follow the international laws of war, the administration argued that they were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, they reasoned that since Al-Qaeda’s ‘War against the West’ is, as they claimed, eternal, then so should be the length of time that a detainee could be held at bay. In essence they declared that counter terrorism and protecting the American public are goals that override the commitment to respect human rights.
One of President Obama’s most publicized vows was to disassemble Guantánamo altogether. Due to fierce bipartisan opposition, he was unable to lead forward such legislation. Nevertheless, he managed to significantly reduce the number of detainees from 242 to 41. President Trump, however, was unequivocally supportive of the detention camp. “We’re gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we’re gonna load it up”, he asserted in his election campaign. Hence, in line with his committed stance, Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention camp open indefinitely.
To this day, only one Guantánamo detainee transferred to the U.S. mainland for trial in a civil court. Under the current administration, it seems like such an occurrence will not take place again. Guantánamo appears to be a tactical weapon that the U.S. is not willing to drop in the foreseeable future.
Guantánamo Bay acts as an alternate reality for the United States as a place where the law is lose and sympathy is scarce. Considering that it is in Cuba, the U.S. government is able to hold detainees without consideration of habeas corpus: the right to a fair trial, as neither US nor international law is employed on the island.
Following the terror attacks of 9/11, the U.S government opened the Guantánamo detention camp as a tactical location where the law can be dismissed, or at the very least finessed, in order for terrorism suspects to be interrogated without any legal restraints. Originally a Bush administration initiative, the prison had 779 detainees over the years. The government planned to extract information from ‘enemy combatants’ in the War on Terror. CIA officers extract intelligence using various forms of torture, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, ruthless beatings and the use of freezing water.
Human rights groups relentlessly fight against Guantánamo, as they believe that the camp’s very existence is an immoral atrocity. Despite these concerns, the Bush administration regarded the camp as an indispensable asset to national security. Due to the fact that the detainees are classified as “unlawful enemy combatants”, who failed to follow the international laws of war, the administration argued that they were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, they reasoned that since Al-Qaeda’s ‘War against the West’ is, as they claimed, eternal, then so should be the length of time that a detainee could be held at bay. In essence they declared that counter terrorism and protecting the American public are goals that override the commitment to respect human rights.
One of President Obama’s most publicized vows was to disassemble Guantánamo altogether. Due to fierce bipartisan opposition, he was unable to lead forward such legislation. Nevertheless, he managed to significantly reduce the number of detainees from 242 to 41. President Trump, however, was unequivocally supportive of the detention camp. “We’re gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we’re gonna load it up”, he asserted in his election campaign. Hence, in line with his committed stance, Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention camp open indefinitely.
To this day, only one Guantánamo detainee transferred to the U.S. mainland for trial in a civil court. Under the current administration, it seems like such an occurrence will not take place again. Guantánamo appears to be a tactical weapon that the U.S. is not willing to drop in the foreseeable future.
The Impact of Guantanamo
People all over the world know the United States as the “land of the free and home of the brave.” But are American commitments to freedom, justice, and liberty restricted only to what goes on inside its own borders? On a US naval base in Cuba, the human rights of prisoners are infringed upon through torture and the lack of due process.
One prisoner at Guantanamo is Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yaxidi who has been a prisoner since Guantanamo opened in January of 2002. The U.S government sent him to Guantanamo Bay after a US military assessment concluded that he likely was involved with al-Qaeda and its leadership. However, the validity of this conclusion has been called into question, as “these assessments have proven unreliable, containing information derived from torture, or false statements provided by co-detainees eager to curry favor or get better treatment,” according to the Human Rights Watch. Because of this legal conclusion,the government was supposed to release al-Yazdi during the George W Bush and Obama administrations. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, al-Yazdi, along with five other previously cleared prisoners, remains in detention.
Al-Yaxidi is not the only individual who has been imprisoned on questionable grounds. As of 2018, 779 men had been taken to Guantanamo Bay. According to Amnesty International, “Of [those imprisoned there], only seven have been convicted,vincluding five as a result of pre-trial agreements under which they pleaded guilty in return for the possibility of release from the base. These men faced trial by 'military commission'. The proceedings did not meet fair trial standards.” It seems clear from this statement that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not receiving access to the universal human right to a fair trial enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human RIghts, nor the United States Constitution. This violation of their rights surprised even the detainees themselves. In an Op-Ed for The New York Times in 2012, former Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene writes that at the time of his detention “I still had faith in American justice. I believed my captors would quickly realize their mistake and let me go. But when I would not give the interrogators the answers they wanted — how could I, when I had done nothing wrong? — they became more and more brutal. I was kept awake for many days straight. I was forced to remain in painful positions for hours at a time. These are things I do not want to write about; I want only to forget.” Boumediene went on a hunger strike for two years because he was not told why he was detained. Hunger strikes are a common practice for Guantanamo prisoners who often resort to this to “protest their conditions and continuing detention,” according to Amnesty International. Like his fellow prisoners, officers at Guantanamo force fed Boumediene with a tube. Boumediene continued his protest, which eventually led him and his case all the way to the Supreme Court in 2008. In Boumediene v Bush, the Supreme Court “[rejected] the Bush administration’s argument that prisoners can be held for years without a fair process for assessing the evidence against them,” as summarized by the Human Rights Watch, resulting in the freeing of Boumediene and 4 others.
Despite the fact that this ruling was seen by many, including Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, to have ““stripped Guantanamo of its reason for being: a law-free zone where prisoners can’t challenge their detention,” 40 people remain there still today. Guantanamo’s ability to indefinitely detain prisoners was even strengthened in 2012 with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act against a backdrop of strong disapproval from the UN. In a press release, UN officials were quoted stating that the National Defense Authorization Act “‘contravenes some of the most fundamental tenets of justice and human rights, namely the right to a fair trial and the right not to be arbitrarily detained. Nobody should ever be held for years on end without being tried and convicted, or released’” Unfortunately, in the words of former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, “the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained – indefinitely – in clear breach of international law.”
People all over the world know the United States as the “land of the free and home of the brave.” But are American commitments to freedom, justice, and liberty restricted only to what goes on inside its own borders? On a US naval base in Cuba, the human rights of prisoners are infringed upon through torture and the lack of due process.
One prisoner at Guantanamo is Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yaxidi who has been a prisoner since Guantanamo opened in January of 2002. The U.S government sent him to Guantanamo Bay after a US military assessment concluded that he likely was involved with al-Qaeda and its leadership. However, the validity of this conclusion has been called into question, as “these assessments have proven unreliable, containing information derived from torture, or false statements provided by co-detainees eager to curry favor or get better treatment,” according to the Human Rights Watch. Because of this legal conclusion,the government was supposed to release al-Yazdi during the George W Bush and Obama administrations. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, al-Yazdi, along with five other previously cleared prisoners, remains in detention.
Al-Yaxidi is not the only individual who has been imprisoned on questionable grounds. As of 2018, 779 men had been taken to Guantanamo Bay. According to Amnesty International, “Of [those imprisoned there], only seven have been convicted,vincluding five as a result of pre-trial agreements under which they pleaded guilty in return for the possibility of release from the base. These men faced trial by 'military commission'. The proceedings did not meet fair trial standards.” It seems clear from this statement that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not receiving access to the universal human right to a fair trial enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human RIghts, nor the United States Constitution. This violation of their rights surprised even the detainees themselves. In an Op-Ed for The New York Times in 2012, former Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene writes that at the time of his detention “I still had faith in American justice. I believed my captors would quickly realize their mistake and let me go. But when I would not give the interrogators the answers they wanted — how could I, when I had done nothing wrong? — they became more and more brutal. I was kept awake for many days straight. I was forced to remain in painful positions for hours at a time. These are things I do not want to write about; I want only to forget.” Boumediene went on a hunger strike for two years because he was not told why he was detained. Hunger strikes are a common practice for Guantanamo prisoners who often resort to this to “protest their conditions and continuing detention,” according to Amnesty International. Like his fellow prisoners, officers at Guantanamo force fed Boumediene with a tube. Boumediene continued his protest, which eventually led him and his case all the way to the Supreme Court in 2008. In Boumediene v Bush, the Supreme Court “[rejected] the Bush administration’s argument that prisoners can be held for years without a fair process for assessing the evidence against them,” as summarized by the Human Rights Watch, resulting in the freeing of Boumediene and 4 others.
Despite the fact that this ruling was seen by many, including Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, to have ““stripped Guantanamo of its reason for being: a law-free zone where prisoners can’t challenge their detention,” 40 people remain there still today. Guantanamo’s ability to indefinitely detain prisoners was even strengthened in 2012 with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act against a backdrop of strong disapproval from the UN. In a press release, UN officials were quoted stating that the National Defense Authorization Act “‘contravenes some of the most fundamental tenets of justice and human rights, namely the right to a fair trial and the right not to be arbitrarily detained. Nobody should ever be held for years on end without being tried and convicted, or released’” Unfortunately, in the words of former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, “the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained – indefinitely – in clear breach of international law.”