Activisten
hebben afgelopen donderdag in Washington gedemonstreerd tegen het
zonder een eerlijk proces voor onbepaalde tijd vasthouden van
verdachten, dit in concentratiekamp Guantanamo Bay op Cuba……
Nog
40 verdachten zitten vast in Guantanamo Bay, 17 jaar na het
installeren van dit concentratiekamp en 10 jaar nadat Obama een
onmiddellijke sluiting beloofde…….
In
feite gijzelt de VS de gevangenen op Guantanamo Bay, een smerige
misdaad (waar hun gevangenneming al illegaal was en ze daarna ook nog eens werden ontvoerd door de VS….)…… Aan het voorgaande kan je toevoegen dat de behandeling van de
gegijzelde verdachten in dit concentratiekamp zonder meer als
geestelijke en fysieke marteling kan worden gezien……. Guantanamo Bay waar de
verdachten werden gemarteld met o.a. martelwerktuigen, martelingen waarna een
paar verdachten werden veroordeeld, alsof het normaal is om mensen te
martelen voor een verklaring (die zoals wetenschappelijk bewezen, van
nul en generlei waarde is….)
De
VS bewijst met Guantanamo Bay, of zelfs men het daar noemt Gitmo, geheel ten overvloede nog eens dat het de grootste terreurentiteit op
aarde is…….
Hoe
is het in godsnaam mogelijk dat de wereld de VS laat begaan, niet
alleen met het concentratiekamp op Cuba, maar ook met alle andere
vormen van grootschalige terreur die de VS uitoefent over de wereld,
zoals: -illegale oorlogen, -staatsgrepen, -geheime militaire moordacties, -standrechtelijke executie van verdachten middels drones (waarbij meer
dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens werd verdacht….), -het
organiseren van opstanden het liefst middels economische
oorlogsvoering en -het beïnvloeden van de politiek en verkiezingen
elders….. Voor al deze zaken bestaan bij wijze van spreken
kilometers aan bewijsmateriaal…….
YANKEE
GO HOME!! (and stay in the USA!)
Activists
decry abuse at Guantanamo, 10 years after Obama ordered it shut
Activists
and legal experts denounce potentially indefinite detention of 40
people at prison
Protesters
gather across from White House on Friday (MEE/Ali Harb)
Friday
11 January 2019 18:50 UTC
Last
update:
Friday
11 January 2019 23:49 UTC
WASHINGTON
– Guantanamo
Bay inmate Tolfiq al-Bihani has been cleared for release, but 10
years after former President Barack Obama signed an executive order
to shut down the detention facility, he and 39 others remain
imprisoned without the prospect of freedom or a fair trial.
On
Thursday, dozens of activists gathered at a park across from the
White House to demand closing the detention facility, which operates
outside the US legal system.
Protesters
in orange jumpsuits with black bags covering their heads, symbolising
the abuse that Guantanamo prisoners have faced, stood with their
backs to the White House as activists and legal experts denounced the
continued detention of 40 people at the prison.
The
facility, built on US-controlled land in Cuba, was set up to house
suspected dangerous militants from US wars after the 9/11 attacks.
The
demonstration marked 17 years since the detention facility opened and
10 years since Obama signed a decree to close it down “promptly“.
Jessica
Murphy and Leila Murphy, two sisters whose father was killed in the
9/11 attacks, said instead of ensuring justice for the victims
Guantanamo has “compounded the tragedy of 9/11”.
“We
abhor the government’s disregard for rule of law and its flagrant
human rights abuses in the name of our father and other victims,”
they said, taking turns reading a joint statement.
‘Source
of shame’
British
journalist Andy Worthington said the detention facility has been open
for 6,210 days.
“That’s
6,210 days of shame for every decent American… Every day this
prison is open is a source of shame for all decent people,” he
told the crowd.
“This
isn’t an ordinary prison where people have been tried and convicted.
This isn’t a war prison where people are taken off the battlefield
and held, protected by the Geneva Convention until the end of
hostilities.”
What
Guantanamo is, Worthington said, is a place where people can be held
without “any rights whatsoever as human beings”.
“This
prison is unconstitutional, it is illegal and more importantly it is
immoral and inhumane”
-Aya
Saed, Center for Constitutional Rights
He
called the detainees political prisoners who have become political
tools for President Donald Trump.
Indeed,
the US president has repeatedly brought up Guantanamo to project an
image of strength in the face of supposed danger from what he calls
“radical Islamic terrorism”.
Trump
even mentioned the prison in his 2018 State
of the Union,
an annual speech to the nation in which presidents highlight their
accomplishments and lay out their vision for the forthcoming year.
Furthermore,
under his administration, the process of finding countries to
transfer five inmates cleared for release, including al-Bihani, has
been frozen.
As
a candidate, Trump promised to keep the prison open and load it up
with “bad
dudes“.
Forty
inmates remain at Guantanamo, 10 years after Obama’s executive order
(MEE/Ali Harb)
Civil
rights advocates have criticised the abuse and lack of due process at
the detention facility, where inmates have few legal resources and
face no charges from which they can defend themselves.
Last
year, Trump revoked Obama’s executive order to shut down the
prison, proclaiming that
the US can detain “certain persons captured in connection with
an armed conflict for the duration of the conflict”.
Critics
say Trump’s decree opens the door for indefinite detention of
suspected militants, as the “War on Terror” has been going
on for 18 years and has no end in sight.
For
his part, Obama blamed lack
of political consensus for his failure to follow up on the promise to
down the facility.
“He
wasn’t bold enough,” said Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International
USA’s director of security with human rights, of the former
president. “He could have done it at the very beginning. He had
the support of Congress.”
In
the process of being “extremely careful”, Eviatar told
Middle East Eye, Obama slowed the process of transferring detainees,
and when Republicans took over Congress in 2011, they refused to
transfer suspects to the US for trial.
‘Immoral
and inhumane’
“This
prison is unconstitutional, it is illegal and more importantly it is
immoral and inhumane,” said Aya Saed, who works at the Center
for Constitutional Rights, which legally represents Guantanamo
detainees.
While
acknowledging the difficulty of progress under the Trump
administration, Saed called for collective action on behalf of the
prisoners.
“What
I do hope is that their perseverance, their resilience, their will to
get up every day to participate in hunger strikes inspires us to
continue dreaming of a different world, imagining of a different
reality,” she said at the protest on Friday.
At
an event organised by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and rights
groups in Washington earlier on Friday, Mohamedou Slahi, a former in
Guantanamo inmate who was held from 2002 until 2016, described the
abuse he endured in the prison.
“In
an attempt to force me to confess to crimes I did not commit, I was
subjected to torture and to cruel and inhumane treatment,” he
told the attendees via video conference from Mauritania, where he was
transferred in 2016, “as if losing my freedom, my livelihood and
being forcibly separated from my loved ones wasn’t cruel enough.”
The
human rights activist and author of Guantanamo Diary, which he
wrote when he was in the prison, added that his release in did not
end his suffering.
“I
am still not free,” he said, explaining that he has been denied
a passport and can’t leave Mauritania.
“I
am a prisoner in my own country,” Slahi said. “I am being
denied my freedom of movement” despite never having been charged
with or committing any acts of terrorism or other crimes.
Zie ook:
The
ludicrous notion of justice in Guantanamo #Guantanamo
Why
Trump’s pledge to keep Guantanamo open doesn’t matter #Trump
Morocco
acquits former Guantanamo detainee #Guantanamo
Voor meer berichten over Guantanamo Bay, klik op het betreffende label, direct onder dit bericht.