1-17-2012
By Daphne EviatarSenior Associate, Law and Security
On his second day in office, President Obama pledged to close Guantanamo within a year. Three years later, and ten years after it was first opened, the military detention center on a remote U.S. military base in Cuba remains open. As military leaders and experts across the political spectrum have acknowledged, the Guantanamo Bay prison undermines our values and our national security.
Of the 171 detainees left at Guantanamo, more than half have been cleared for transfer or release by the Obama and/or Bush Administrations. However, due to Congressional restrictions, signed into law by President Obama, even those cleared of wrongdoing remain there. And Guantanamo continues to serve as a potent symbol for terrorist recruitment.
Guantanamo harms our nation every day it stays open. We at Human Rights First are working with prominent partners in the human rights, legal and military communities to call on the President to honor the principled and pragmatic commitment he made in 2009. As the attached statement explains, it’s time to insist that Congress stop making Guantanamo – and the fate of the men imprisoned there – a political football.
Please support that effort by signing the petition.
Close Guantanamo now!
Rendition, indefinite detention and torture are the marks of tyranny. It never should have been engaged in and remains a black mark on our country and its people doing nothing more than recruiting additional terrorist wishing to exact revenge upon our country because of our extremely poor foreign relations, military aggression, and utter disregard for not only the people of other lands but that of our own poor and under privileged and their use as cannon fodder for the corporate elites. Thanks to our fine corporate controlled congress it now is aimed at our own citizens to conveniently ‘disappear’ any citizen who disagrees with politicians or corporations as it will be used in the future.