This Friday, June 15, Guantanamo Bay prison will have been open for 6,000 days. A depressing milestone that marks 6,000 days of torture, abuse and indefinite detention without charge. It is a cruel reminder of just how long this injustice has gone on.
Via the Close Guantanamo campaign, there has been a photo campaign all year involving the Gitmo Clock, which counts, in real time, how long Guantanamo has been open, and urges Donald Trump to close it.People have been taking photos with posters every 25 days showing how long the prison has been open.
Join us in telling Donald Trump, "Not one day more!"
Print off a poster, take a photo, with it and send it to info@closeguantanamo.org, or just gisplay the poster on a tablet and have your photo taken with it - or even on your phone!
6,000 Days Poster-
http://www.gtmoclock.com/posters/GTMO-Clock-6000.pdf
Check out all the photos here
https://www.closeguantanamo.org/Gitmo-Clock-2018-photos
Most of the men held at Guantanamo over the last 6,000 days (16 years, five months and four days) have been held without charge or trial, in defiance of international laws and treaties governing the treatment of prisoners, There are only two acceptable ways to deprive an individual of their liberty- either as a criminal suspect to be tried in a federal court or as a prisoner of war, held unmolested until the end of hostilities. The men at Guantanamo are neither. Instead, after 9/11, the Bush administration concieved of a novel category of prisoner - one without any rights whatsoever - and implemented this at Guantanamo. Although
the prisoners have fought to secure rights, being granted
constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights by the Supreme Court in
June 2008, those rights were eviscerated by a number of appeals court
decisions between 2009 and 2011, effectively gutting habeas corpus of
all meaning for the Guantánamo prisoners. The unacceptable reality of
Guantánamo now is that the men still held can only be freed at the whim
of the president, and the president has no intention of releasing
anyone.
Donald
Trump inherited 41 prisoners from Barack Obama, but he has only
released one man, a Saudi repatriated to ongoing imprisonment as part of
a plea deal he agreed in the military commission trial system in 2014.
Of the 40 men still held, only nine are facing, or have faced trials.
Five were approved for release by high-level government review processes
under President Obama, but are still held, while the other 26,
accurately described as “forever prisoners” by the media, are held
indefinitely without charge or trial, regarded as posing an ongoing
threat to the U.S., even though the U.S. apparently lacks the evidence
to put them on trial.
Every day that Guantanamo remains open is a black mark against America's notion of itself as a nation founded on the rule of law, which respect the rule of law. Andy Worthington, the co-founder of the Close Guantanamo campaign,https://www.closeguantanamo.org/ said "6,000 days is far longer than the two world wars combined. It is outrageous that the U.S Government continues to perptuate the myth of an endless war, as a supposed justification for holding prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial, when this is, in fact, a policy for which there is no justification whatsoever."
Helen Schietinger of Witness Against Torture http://www.witnessagainsttorture.com/ said "it
is significant, and not accidental, that all the men who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo are Muslim. How many holy months of Ramadan have they missed during these 6,000 days? How many more must they endure, never being allowed visits by their families?"
The fight against Guantanamo is proving to be a long one, but wont stop until Guantanamo is closed for good.
Every day that Guantanamo remains open is a black mark against America's notion of itself as a nation founded on the rule of law, which respect the rule of law. Andy Worthington, the co-founder of the Close Guantanamo campaign,https://www.closeguantanamo.org/ said "6,000 days is far longer than the two world wars combined. It is outrageous that the U.S Government continues to perptuate the myth of an endless war, as a supposed justification for holding prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial, when this is, in fact, a policy for which there is no justification whatsoever."
Helen Schietinger of Witness Against Torture http://www.witnessagainsttorture.com/ said "it
is significant, and not accidental, that all the men who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo are Muslim. How many holy months of Ramadan have they missed during these 6,000 days? How many more must they endure, never being allowed visits by their families?"
The fight against Guantanamo is proving to be a long one, but wont stop until Guantanamo is closed for good.
