SO... WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?
Within America’s globally pervasive War on Terror is a place known as Guantanamo Bay or GITMO.
Quietly nestled in the JTF-GTMO Naval Base, in the south of Cuba, it imprisons and detains persons under the illegal mandate of the FISA and Patriot Act, whose powers expanded immensely after the 9/11 attacks. The crimes committed at Guantanamo against prisoners reflect some of the most inhuman torture protocols in modern history and parade the bullshitosaurus of American human rights firmly on the international stage.
HABEAS CORPUS
To this day, GITMO remains a symbol of the violation of Habeas Corpus,
the US constitutional decree that federal courts must determine if a prisoner’s detention is valid or not, and that they have a right to a fair trial. Unfortunately, these captives of the US military are virtually ghosts of civil society.
NO COURT HAS JURISDICTION OVER GUANTANAMO
“Some senior civilian Bush administration officials chose Guantánamo to interrogate detainees because they thought it’s a law-free zone where we can unlawfully… handle a very small number of cases. We have turned our backs on the law and created what we believed was a place outside the law’s reach.”
Former Air Force Colonel who resigned in October 2007 in protest
against interrogation methods at Guantánamo
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
779
Total number of detainees ever incarcerated at Guantanamo
532
Detainees released under President Bush
115
Detainees released under President Obama
122
Detainees remaining at Guantanamo
92% OF GUANTANAMO PRISONERS
ARE NOT CATEGORISED AS AL-QAEDA FIGHTERS
ACCORDING TO U.S. GOVERNMENT DATA
KEY GUANTANAMO FACTS
REWARDS
5% of the detainees were captured by the US military, but 86% were turned in by Pakistani & Iraqi families, attracted to the million dollar bounties.
HUNGER STRIKE
In 2013, 103 detainees went on a hunger strike as protest. Forty-one were force-fed twice a day through tubes running into their noses down to their stomachs.
TORTURE
Released detainees claimed that waterboarding, sexual humiliation, forced drugging and other forms of torture were used on prisoners.
INDEFINITE DETENTION
Almost half of the detainees – 55 men in total – were cleared for release in January 2010, yet they continue to be held at Guantanamo.
KEY GUANTANAMO NUMBERS
9
Prisoners who have died while in custody.
150
The number of completely innocent Afghanis and Pakistanis sent to Guantanamo
13
The age of the youngest Guantanamo prisoner.
106
The number of current detainees imprisoned for more than 10 years.
TORTURE
The Torture Report and Wikileaks GTMO Files analyze the 13 “enhanced interrogation” techniques used there, which include, but are not limited to: cramped confinement, nudity, stress positions, sleep deprivation, rectal feeding (yes, feeding you through your asshole) and waterboarding. A declassified SSCI torture report admitted that the US government paid medical professionals to monitor the health of inmates so that they could continue to withstand torture; a clear violation of the 1947 Nuremberg Codes.
Nevertheless, many in the Bush and Obama Administrations believe that their actions are “justified, including former CIA employee John Rizzo and President Obama, who openly admitted that “we tortured some folks”. Confirming these delusions, a Pew Research Center poll confirmed that 51% of Americans believe GITMO torture was “justified”. Contradicting marketable GTMO propaganda, the SSCI report proved torture as ineffective, inciting false testimonies obtained during interrogations in order to end pain and suffering. In one such case, Libyan national Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi provided false information that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which was gleefully used by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.
THE U.N. CONDEMNS GUANTANAMO
“We must be clear about this: the United States is in clear breach not just of its own commitments, but also of international laws and standards that it is obliged to uphold. When other countries breach these standards, the U.S.– quite rightly — strongly criticizes them for it.”
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
OBAMA’S LEGACY IS AT STAKE
US President Barack Obama had previously declared his intentions to shut down Guantanamo. On his second day in office, Obama pledged to close the prison camp within a year.
Yet it remains open, undermining America’s values and national security, a shameful symbol of torture that has destroyed the last remnants of America’s moral authority in the World.
Obama’s pledge was a grand and theatrical gesture, fueled by “Yes we can” post-election euphoria. Since then, his actions have spoken differently to his words. On 7 January 2011, Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, which, in part, placed restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the mainland or to foreign countries, thus impeding the closure of the facility.
So far the White House has not put its full political weight behind Guantanamo’s closure. However, at this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama vowed once again to close Guantanamo Bay.
He urged Congress to lift restrictions on detainee transfers and promised a more “targeted approach” to combating terrorism.
TICKING TIME BOMB
“Instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantánamo became a symbol that helped al-Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantánamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.”
~President Obama, 2009
ALLRIOT CAMPAIGN
We at ALLRIOT believe that it’s time for the US to close down its gulag in Cuba for the sake of human rights and dignity. It must shut down so that governments can properly fight terrorism with factual investigations using effective investigative methods, exemplify human rights instead of touting it, and prevent detainees from further radicalizing and reintegrating into global terrorist networks such as the Islamic State. American taxpayers pay excessive amounts to keep it open and it does nothing for their security or reputation abroad. We want to terminate Guantanamo Bay now before more innocent people, like you and I, become the next ones to receive room and board.
We are compelled to speak out against the unjust criminality and complete destruction of basic freedoms at GITMO.
Our campaign operates to raise awareness of several points:
1.
The incredible abuses against GITMO detainees and violation of human rights.
2.
The ineffectiveness of the War of Terror and its origins.
3.
The danger of GITMO expansion to all places on Earth, as Western leaders target and detain innocent citizens under baseless claims.
