Guantanamo Bay – A Symbol of Gross Human Rights Violations

Guantanamo Bay is a bay located in the Guantanamo Province in the south-eastern end of Cuba. The United States has assumed the territorial control over the Guantanamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban-American treaty. Since 2002 the United States naval base at the Guantanamo Bay, also called the Gitmo, is hosting it’s detention camp where they hold people accused of being terrorists and waging a war against the United States and it’s people. But the gross human rights violation happening in the Gitmo has resulted in the widespread agitation by human rights groups the world over.

The major issue of contention is the United States’ refusal to accept the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay as “Prisoners of War” or the PoWs. Instead the United States is quite adamant in calling the prisoners as “unlawful combatants”, and hence they don’t come under the protection of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that set out rules that have to be followed in dealing with the PoWs. The Bush Administration is blatantly flouting the International humanitarian laws and is challenging the whole essence of basic human rights. The prisoners at Gitmo are tortured, coerced and deprived and are subjected to grave human rights violations. And one of the most appalling things about the Guantanamo prison is that the public is absolutely oblivious about who the detainees are, what they have allegedly done and whether they have been charged, convicted or released. Even some of the prisoners are not having any idea about the alleged crime that they have committed.

The United States’ contention that the persons captured from Afghanistan are not prisoners of war is really faulty as they don’t have the moral and legal right to conclude that, unless and until a competent tribunal individually determine that they are not eligible for the prisoners of war status. Instead of setting up an independent tribunal for the trial of the prisoners, the United States had set up an inherently flawed military tribunal for the trial of the prisoners often done at secret places without giving the prisoners any access to outsiders or access to defense counsels, which in itself is violation of international norms of natural justice.

The prisoners also include children and they are kept together with the adult prisoners which is a violation of international standards. There are special international rules on child prisoners and under the Optional Protocol on Child Soldiers, which the United States has ratified, the US government is having responsibility of rehabilitation of these child prisoners and they must be given special protection against any form of torture and mental or physical anguish. But the rehabilitation of these hapless children is not possible at a place like Guantanamo far form their homes and hence the US government should take immediate decision on the status of these children and should resolve all outstanding cases involving these children at the earliest.

Guantanamo Bay is already an icon of lawlessness. The prisoners at this prison are subjected to torture techniques like waterboarding, which is not all acceptable under any circumstances. If the United States is going to use the evidences, that they received from the prisoners through torture techniques, against them at their trial, it is going to be an obvious infringement of international laws and violation of basic human rights. The prisoners who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay without charge and without a free trial are victims of grave human rights defiance of the United States. Convicting the detainees on charges of terrorism by just assuming that they have perpetrated the crime, without free trial, is a gross injustice and should be condemned in the strongest of words. All human rights organizations and human rights activists are strongly for prosecuting persons responsible for inciting violence, involved in the act of terrorism and engaged in the crimes against humanity, but such a prosecution should be based on fair trial and according to international due process standards.

The United States should mend its ways regarding its administration of the Guantanamo Bay. They should bring back order in its handling of the detainees and should get ready to accept and obey all international laws regarding prisoners and there should be no human rights violations on its prisoners. Treacherous use of force and barbaric forms of torture against the prisoners should be abandoned with immediate effect. Fair trial processes should be initiated for the prosecution of the detainees and there should be access to defense counsels for the detainees and there should also be provisions for judicial review.

Above all, Guantanamo Bay, the ominous harbor of mental and physical affliction, should be closed down permanently. All human rights activists and all those who believe in the ultimate tenets of justice and human rights should work together in disrupting this horrific and terrible prison which has become a symbol of mass human rights violation and human torture. I, being a blogger who writes for human rights , strongly condemn the United States’ actions against the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and calls for the shutting down of this state-sponsored terror center.