Guantánamo Bay Detention Center
"Worst of the Worst"
The Detainees
Legal Status
Torture Allegations
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Suggested Reading and Resources
See also:
The Guantánamo Reading Project
In 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announced that Guantánamo Bay would be used to hold “the worst of the worst,” dangerous prisoners from the war on terror. The Administration has alleged that the detainees are “dangerous terrorists” who are “determined to harm innocent civilians.” Americans were assured that “America does not torture” and that the detainees are being given fair hearings. In the years since, the Bush Administration’s Guantánamo detention center has been revealed to be something quite different.
According to a 2006 report by Seton Hall Law School, the detainees are not, actually, the worst of the worst. The report profiles 517 of these detainees using information gained from the Department of Defense. Of the detainees dubbed “worst of the worst,” 55% were not included in the government’s summaries of evidence as having committed” hostile acts” against US or coalition forces. Of the remaining 45%, some are, at best, low level al Qaeda personnel, including a training camp cook’s assistant. Only 8 % of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters, 40% had no definitive link to al Qaeda, and 18% had no link to either.
Amnesty International, too, has uncovered evidence that a majority of the detainees are, at worst, minor members of the Taliban and al Qaeda who pose no risk to the US or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Amnesty International cites interviews with detainees, who recount being picked up and detained despite a total lack of involvement with the Taliban or al Qaeda. They also cite evidence that only 5% of the Guantánamo detainees were captured by US forces. The rest were captured by Northern Alliance fighters, often for rewards of thousands of dollars.
For more information, look at Amnesty International's Guantánamo Page.
In 2001, President Bush issued an executive order authorizing the detention of non-citizen “enemy combatants.” In January of 2002, the first prisoners arrived at Guantánamo. Since then, the Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to deprive these detainees of even the most basic legal rights, and strand them in permanent legal no-man’s land. A series of Supreme Court cases, Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, undermined Bush’s strategy. More information on these cases and other important cases can be found on our court cases page, or on the Duke Law School’s pages for Rasul, Hamdi, and Hamdan.
In late 2006, legal proceedings at Guantánamo came to a standstill, because Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, under intense pressure from the White House, following the Hamdan decision. The act essentially undermines the habeas corpus rights of the detainees, allows the use of evidence obtained through torture, and does not come close to satisfying fundamental due process requirements.
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For more Information on the Military Commissions Act:
- BORDC's Due Process page
- BORDC's MCA page
- Center for Constitutional Rights' MCA Summary
In June of 2007, the military commissions ground to a halt when two judges found that under the MCA, they lacked the authority to try “enemy combatants” not found to be “unlawful enemy combatants.” While this appears to be a mere technicality, it is a rather significant point and an example of the haste with which the MCA was put together. An editorial here explains the significance.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals came under fire in June of 2007, when an Army Colonel, Stephen E Abrams, who had worked on the CSRTs came forward with his opposition to the process. Abrams described the tribunals as “deeply flawed and largely a tool for commanders to rubber-stamp decisions they had already made” in a deposition. More information can be found here.
These problems culminated in a June 30, 2007, decision by the Supreme
Court to hear a case they had previously refused. The case, a combination
of Lakhdar Boumediene et al. v. Bush and Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad
Al Odah et al. v. US, asks whether "foreign citizens imprisoned
indefinitely" by the U.S. military can go to federal court and,
if so, whether their imprisonment amounts to "unlawful confinement"
from which a federal judge might free them. The Supreme Court will
hear it during the 2007-2008 term.
Despite claims from the Bush Administration that no torture is taking place at the Guantánamo detention center and that all prisoners are treated humanely, Amnesty International issued a report in April of 2007 which disputes this. Large numbers of the detainees are subjected to conditions which are tantamount to torture. They are kept in small cells lacking any natural light and given very little time for exercise or activity. Most prisoners are in solitary confinement and rarely interact with other people.
The conditions of one detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan’s, imprisonment are described in a District Court proceeding:
"Since December 2003 Mr Hamdan has been confined alone in a cell, in a house that is guarded by a single non-Arabic-speaking guard. A translator is rarely available. He receives 60 minutes of exercise outdoors three times a week, only at night... Mr Hamdan has described his moods during his period of solitary confinement as deteriorating, and as encompassing frustration, rage (although he has not been violent), loneliness, despair, depression, anxiety, and emotional outbursts. He asserted that he has considered confessing falsely to ameliorate his situation."
These conditions, while perhaps not active torture, are definitely a form of passive torture. The treatment of the detainees is designed to cause them mental and emotional harm.
Another aspect of detainee maltreatment is the government’s policy of force-feeding hunger strikers. Detainees began hunger strikes in August of 2005 in an effort to protest their open-ended confinement. The number of detainees involved in the hunger strikes eventually grew to 131; however, the US military began using restraint chairs and feeding tubes to force-feed strikers. During the feeding, prisoners are strapped into restraint chairs to prevent them from vomiting or resisting. The tubes are then inserted through a prisoner’s nose and nutrients are pumped into their stomachs. More information can be found here and here.
The treatment of the detainees at Guantánamo is an extreme violation not only of us and international law, but also basic ethical norms.
A number of bills aimed at shutting down Guantánamo and restoring habeas corpus are currently in both the House and Senate. You can take a look at our legislation page for information about specific bills. If you want to contact a member of Congress about Guantánamo, you can get their contact information here.
January 11 is the date when the first detainees started to arrive in Guantánamo in 2002. It is an excellent opportunity to call upon our elected officials to end the abuse and torture, restore habeas corpus, and provide a just means for detainees to either receive a fair trial or be set free.
On January 11, 2007, protests took place across the US and the world.
To read coverage of the protests, click
here. For more information on how to plan your own January 11
event, click here.
Suggested Reading and Resources
BORDC Pages:
- Our MCA Page
- The Guantánamo Reading Project
- Discussion with Guantánamo attorney Sabin Willett
- Coverage of Guantánamo protests
Reports:
Cruel and Inhuman: Conditions of isolation for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Amnesty International's report on conditions at Guantánamo.
Manual for Military Commissions
Physicians for Human Rights Report
Tipton Report written by three of the British detainees about their experience at Guantánamo (Center for Constitutional Rights)
Seton Hall reports: February 2006, March 2006, July 2006,
Report On Guantánamo Detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data, Seton Hall Law School's report on the Guantánamo Detainees.
Seton Hall report on June, 2006 Suicides
Other Websites and Articles:
Brutal treatment of hunger striking detainees at Gitmo (Center for Constitutional Rights)
Database of Guantanamo prisoners (Washington Post)
Wittness Against Torture: A Campaign to Shut Down Guantánamo