WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — More than 150 groups defending civil rights in the United States asked the administration of President Joe Biden to close the military prison located in illegally occupied territory in Guantánamo, Cuba.
Twenty-one years after President George W. Bush (2001-2009) opened the prison, and 13 years after then-ruler Barack Obama (2009-2017) signed an executive order for its dismantling, activists sued the current administration to “act without delay”.
“Among a wide range of human rights violations perpetrated against predominantly Muslim communities in the last two decades, the Guantánamo detention center is the iconic example of the abandonment of the rule of law,” the groups alleged in a letter to Biden, quoted by the Common Dreams site.
Since 2002, they denounced, 779 men and boys have been detained there, many of whom have been tortured and almost all deprived of a formal charge or judicial process.
According to retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Bush-era Secretary of State Colin Powell, both the former president, his vice president Dick Cheney and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew that most of the prisoners were innocent, but they were kept locked up for political reasons, the communication limited.
For his part, former President Obama, who was prevented by Congress from implementing the prison closure, reneged on a campaign promise and the law by actively shielding Bush-era officials from accountability as torture continued in that site, added the text.
The activists also pointed out that today 35 people remain there, at an astronomical cost of 540 million dollars per year, which makes that prison the most expensive detention center in the world.
“Guantanamo embodies the fact that the United States government has long viewed communities of color, both citizens and non-citizens, as a security threat, with devastating consequences,” the letter said.
The approach that this prison exemplifies, the text stressed, continues to feed and justify fanaticism, stereotypes and stigmas, while entrenching racial divisions and racism, and runs the risk of facilitating more rights violations. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
