Human Rights: Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

Through the social contract theory comes, The Guantanamo Bay. This prison was established in 1898 when the United States took control of Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After September 11, 2001, the government knew that the “war on terror” between the United States and terrorists would not be good. Therefore, they took a new measures. Since early 2002, a part of the prison has imprisoned a small group of detainment camps for the Al Qaeda and the Taliban combatants who were captured by the AMerican military post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and

Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. could prove the undoing of the Bush administration’s legal defense of the abuses at Guantanamo Bay. In this case, four British citizens are suing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as well as a host of Army and Air Force Generals and policy apparatchiks for allegedly authorizing the use of torture in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The four were captured in Afghanistan, either by Americans or America’s ally, the Northern Alliance, and transported to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they were held for over two years. Their status there was not as enemy combatant, which guaranteed them certain protections under the Geneva Convention, but rather as

In the beginning of the 21st century, or the early 2000’s, Guantanamo Bay was used to house suspected terrorists that were captured by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The detainment of such prisoners aroused suspicions around the world regarding the constitutionality of the treatment of these prisoners. This was just the beginning of many allegations against the US on the subject.

Mohamed al-Kahtani was a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who endured numerous disgusting and truly horrifying acts of torture. Being seduced by prostitutes and female officers, told to act like a dog and forced to crawl on his hands and feet while barking, and forced to urinate himself are just a few examples of the type of life prisoner’s at Guantanamo Bay are living. They are held in solitary confinement, while all day and night their lights in the rooms are kept on. Each day prisoner’s are tortured. Whether it is psychical or emotional torture, it is occurring all round the camp. Prisoner’s being tied down and forced to listen to extremely loud rock music for and extended period of time is one of the tactics used

Throughout the last 15 years of operation, Guantanamo Bay has faced endless criticism from both international countries and the US. The biggest issue is the legal “black hole” that exists at Guantanamo Bay and the concern over interrogation techniques and torture. We are able to torture prisoners because of how George W Bush described the war. “Bush thought it was a new kind of war and that this meant the Americans didn’t need adhere the rules of the Geneva Convention,” explains Professor Honigsberg from the University of San Francisco. The convention says prisoners of war must be treated humanely during a war. “But Bush didn’t call them ‘prisoners of war’ but ‘enemy combatants’. This was how a

In January of 2009, newly elected President Barak Obama annouced the signing of an executive order that states that Guantanamo Bay would be closed within the year; he did not fulfill this promise though. In November of 2009 President Obama announced that the base would not be closed due to not being able to find somewhere for the detainees to be relocated to. (Cohn, 2015) The fact of the matter is that Americans are the ones paying for this inhumane detention center. With the closure of the Guantanamo Naval Base detention center America tax dollars could be used in a much more effective way. We have veterans who are homeless, yet the money Americans are putting in the government is being used to torture other humans. In Guantanamo Bay there is a practice that is called pharmacologic water boarding. This is where guards administer the drug Mefloquine despite the knowledge the Pentagon had of the side effect, which include suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, and anxiety. This drug is meant to treat malaria, however it was administered to prisoners whether they were presumed to have malaria of not. Leopold said, “The government has exposed detainees to unacceptable high risks of potentially severe neuropsychiatric side effect, including seizures, intense vertigo, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, aggression, panic, anxiety, severe insomnia, and thoughts of suicide. These side effects could be as severe as those intended through the application of the enhanced interrogation techniques.” The effects of this drug are not easily reversed. In fact, with the massive doses administered to the detainees cause the side effects to take weeks or even months to wear off. When the drug began being administered to prisoners the psychiatric cases rose in extreme amounts. This drug has been said to be “human experimentation or enhanced interrogation”. The mind altering side effect of the drug may

British politician and writer, George Galloway, has excellently stated, “Anyone will talk under torture.” Guantanamo Bay, an assortment of detention camps to capture and detain foreign threats, is the 21st century manifestation of torture, societal waste, and degradation. Located near Cuba, Guantanamo’s reputation of “making anyone talk” has lead to it becoming unparalleled in the political benefits it provides. However, “making anyone talk”, is not a job that comes without repercussions. Guantanamo, built upon standards that are antiparallel to American ideals, has lead to significant violations of fundamental human rights, exorbitant economic burdens, consistent abuse of prisoners, and disobedience of US and international laws.

today Guantanamo Bay has been a big topic in today’s society. On his campaign trail, President Obama pledged, “I will close Guantanamo bay detention center within a year of being elected”. My main argument has to be the amount of money were wasting on this prison. To be specific according to democratic lawmakers it has skyrocketed to $2.7 million per inmate. Guantanamo has been dubbed the most expensive prison on earth.

Detainees held in Guantanamo Bay Detention Center located in Cuba are not only potential terrorists, but are also potential threats to our country, families, and loved ones. Detainees have been stricken of their rights to due process and a fair trial in compliance to George Bush enacting the USA PATRIOT Act, after the September 11th bombings. Guantanamo bay should not be shut down, because the detention center allows us to prevent future attacks to the country, question and gain high value intelligence from terror suspects, and also the island naval base houses some of the most lethal terror threats to the United States.

Guantanamo Bay is a United States military prison located in Cuba. It has been considered one of the “top priorities for normalization.” (Brodzins and Watts). Guantanamo was first established in 1898 at the end of the Spanish American War. Guantanamo continued to remain after the Cuban Revolution. There have been rumors of torture at Guantanamo Bay. An interview took place written by CBS news having Col. Patrick Harris, head of human intelligence gathering at the Pentagon’s Defense center talk about Guantanamo Bay. “Yeah,” says Lang. “I think its torture.” Sgt. Erik Saar, a solider who worked in the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay was also interviewed. He spoke about the amount he believes are really terrorists. “At best I’d say a few dozen,” says Saar. “A few dozen [out of 600].” Saar also talks about how the interrogators treat the prisoners during interrogation. “She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her.”(Leung). Even though many rumors of torture exist, but the Embassy of the United States claims that "Categorically that any maltreatment of any detainees by U.S. Forces or Coalition forces is

According to Borelli, prisoners’ legal rights are being violated today more than ever, especially when prisoners are “detained abroad” (3). Many states justify their actions based on the “legal black hole” philosophy, which claims that prisoners have no international legal rights in war. However, Borelli affirms that the rights promised by IHL and IHRL are still applicable to the detainees, citing several international committees as evidence.

The NCRAT (National Religious Campaign Against Torture) is a non-profit organization that helps end torture in U.S. prisons, torture abroad, and end anti-Muslim sentiment. This is an important topic that is in the news almost if not every single day. Ever since 9-11 happened it seems like Americans have had a predetermined notion towards Muslims. This website is trying to stop people from having that notion. On the website there is a #CLOSEGITMO, which means close Guantanamo Bay. President Obama announced that in fact he would close, Guantanamo Bay, and one of the main reasons was because of the torture that gets conducted at the prison along with

Although the actions of the United States government saved American lives and killed a well-known terrorist, after the attacks of 9/11 the U.S. opened an enemy combatant prison, which held many of the prisoners that received advanced interrogation, or torture. Also, known as Guantanamo Bay, it was shortly opened after the terrorist attacks that leftover 3000 Americans dead. “The population at Guantanamo consists primarily of those captured in Afghanistan by the U.S. military after the post-September 11 invasion” (Maran). It was a black site for the detention of foreign enemies that never were charged with a crime. A place where CIA agents could interrogate detainees to extract any information they could without consequences. “The policy of the U.S. government is that the captives are not prisoners of war (POWs) whose internment is regulated by the Third Geneva Convention, in international law, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "unlawful combatants" (Maran). The Geneva Convention is an International law that gives prisoners of war basic humanitarian rights. Which means, with the terrorists not being considered prisoners of war that the Geneva Convention does not cover any detainee’s rights, in simpler terms the United States could do anything to the “Unlawful combatants” (Maran) and not be held to any legal punishment. To put into perspective the United States held about 800 detainees from 2002-2011 on no criminal charges, who received horrendous torture, interrogation, and most importantly treated without basic human rights. When President Obama ran for his presidency in 2008 on one of his main focuses being closing Guantanamo Bay. President Obama also went on to say that the last few years at Guantanamo Bay were “A sad chapter in American history” (Ivey), and signed an executive order on January 21, 2009, for the immediate closure of Guantanamo Bay within the year. With the signing of the order, President Obama was trying to erase some of America’s ugly past with the treatment of prisoners. However, the closing of Guantanamo Bay is a huge task and is still not completed yet in 2017. A big reason why the closing of Guantanamo is taking so long is that they need to transfer all the detainees. Although the

In a political sense alone running Guantanamo is ridiculous. First, America right now, as everyone knows, is in the middle of a crisis concerning our national debt and Guantanamo does not make it easier for our government. The New Yorker reported that the yearly cost of keeping Guantanamo up and running is $445 million, which means we are spending over $7 million dollars per prisoner per year. Second, in a UN human rights council meeting that reviewed the U.S, Guantanamo is always brought up and is always recommended for closure and when countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Libya, and Sudan are lecturing us The United States about human rights violations we should know that something is wrong. There are also some complications that come with the

Guantanamo Bay, which is a detention camp located in Cuba, is always a controversy human-right related topic. People always refer Guantanamo as one of the worst prison in the world. Many people believe that the Guantanamo violates human rights; the prisoners in Guantanamo are treated inhumanely comparing to the other prisons located in the United States. Some argue that U.S. should close Guantanamo while the other say it should remain open. The goal of this paper is to investigate how Guantanamo violates human right and why the United States government should close it. It will discuss some solutions to end torturing the detainees in Guantanamo. Furthermore, it will explain the difficulties of closing Guantanamo Bay and the underlying reasons behind it.