January 11, 2016—14th Anniversary of U.S. Torture Camp at Guantánamo Bay: Close It NOW!

December 21, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Opponents of the U.S. torture camp at Guantánamo will protest Monday, January 11, the 14th anniversary of the Bush regime’s establishment of an isolated military prison where 779 men were held without charges. Many were tortured by the U.S. military when captured, often after they were turned in by local militias who collected a $5,000 bounty, or moved around to other secret prisons in Asia and Europe before being kept at Guantánamo.

Many years of international protest won the release of most prisoners, as it became clear that the U.S. had no evidence against the vast majority. Reports of torture were verified by attorneys who fought for the prisoners’ right to legal representation, and prisoners themselves struggled for justice through hunger strikes and learned English to get their stories out.

Of the 107 prisoners still held in the torture camp that Obama said he would close in 2009, 48 have been “approved” for transfer, but are denied freedom until “security conditions can be met’,” three have been convicted by a military commission (a process designed by the military to get convictions), and seven are awaiting military commission trials; 49 more have never been charged. The U.S. government claims these uncharged prisoners cannot be released because they are too “dangerous,” and they can’t be tried because they’ve been tortured.

World Can’t Wait, a participant in the January protests, says: “The real interests of the vast majority of people in this country are to oppose the crimes of the U.S. empire―to stop thinking like Americans and start thinking about humanity, and to act on that conviction. We are not giving up on the mission of closing this open insult to humanity that is Guantánamo.”

 

 

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