GUANTANAMO BAY DETENTION CAMP: A LEGAL HORROR THAT IS BEING UNNOTICED BY - VARSHA SHREE A. I
GUANTANAMO
BAY DETENTION CAMP: A LEGAL HORROR THAT IS BEING UNNOTICED
AUTHORED BY
- VARSHA SHREE A. I
Abstract
A detention facility, which was earlier used
to facilitate Muslim militants and suspected terrorists captured by the U.S.
forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. At a later stage, it became a place
of violation of human rights gravely based on the abusive treatment of
detainees by the U.S. authorities. The camp was established during the period
of former U.S. President George. W. Bush in 2002, after the 11 September 2001
war on terror. During the inception period, the U.S. government wanted to keep the
count of detainees in the camp as a secret, the U.S. military officially
brought up the number of detainees to the world after failed attempts to defy
the Freedom of Information Act which was raised by the Associated Press. 2005
report of Amnesty International became a turning point, where the facility was
compared with the Gulag, made by Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union where the
detainees are compelled to do forced labour. This made then President Bush to
appoint officers to interrogate the current scenario of the facility’s DoD
practices, enumerated facts are conceded on the tortured done to the detainees.
So, the focal point of the organization is to exhibit the violation of the 5th
and 14th Amendments of U.S. Constitution, as the testimonies of abuses
and tortures of the prisoners were been found. So, this analysis helps to give
an insight on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and how the violations are not
challenged in the eye of international law.
The main
motto behind the formation of the facility
It was the effect
of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the administration led by then-President George.
W. Bush declared this attack as a “war on terror”. He needed to take a counterattack
against the terrorists to maintain peace and harmony in their nation. The facility
was established on 11 January 2002, became a place to hold people who are
perceived to be “enemy combatants” during the war on terror; issued a military
order on “detention, treatment and trial of certain non-citizens against the
war of terrorism”. The non-citizens include the terror Muslim countries like the
Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other Muslim countries that perturb the tranquility of
people. The order authorized the foreign nationals to be in custody charged
indefinitely. At the outset of the detention camp, the first 20 detainees
arrived at the bay, and they were held outdoors in wire mesh cages. In the later
stages of 2002, the camp welcomed the terrorists who were responsible for the September
11 attack with terror. The camp provided no legal means to challenge the
prisoners, and no rights and protection were granted to them, as during Bush’s
regime he made sure that the camp would neither oblige the Procedural codes of
the country nor the code of the Geneva Convention. These rules were been
questioned in the case of Rasul v. Bush [1] as the detainees of the camp
can seek and invoke Habeas Corpus on the aspect of being wrongfully detained by
the Department of Defence. In this case, the petitioners did not get any rights
and they were not being charged for the offence. During the time of detention,
they neither received the right to consult an attorney nor given access to the
court of law or tribunal to question. The main issue of this case was the jurisdiction
of court to provide habeas corpus. The Supreme Court of the U.S. held with a 6:3
ratio of judges on the jurisdiction and challenged the legality of the
executive detention of the captives who were captured and kept in the camp. With
the reference of cases Ahrens v. Clarks [2] and Johnson v.
Eisentrager [3], the court concluded that the present case is different
from the aforementioned cases, as the latter ones concluded that the prisoner
will not get the relief of habeas corpus as they are out of the sovereignty of U.S.
The parameters are different to analyse, as in the Eisentrager case they
had approved themselves being engaged in the war of terror, meanwhile in the case
of Rasul, they did not agree the engagement in the act of aggression
against the US, and they weren’t allowed to be heard or to perceive the
well-being of their families. Therefore, the court stated that despite all
issues, US has the jurisdiction over the Guantanamo Bay camp. The involvement
of other cases will be used to know the relevance on the petitioner’s
constitutional rights on habeas review but did not establish and address the
statutory entitlement. Section 2241 of the Statute refers that the plaintiff
need not be physically present mandatorily, and they only need the custodian
could be reached by the “service of the process”. After the decision of the Rasul case,
within nine days the Department of Defence had set up Military Combatant Status
Review Tribunals had replaced US courts’s jurisdiction to review and ascertain
whether the captives are to be classified as enemy combatants.
The
legality of habeas corpus on persistent detention has been dealt in the case of
Al odah v. US, which has been merged with the case of Boumediene v.
Bush [4] where whether aliens are classified as enemy combatants in the
camp have the right to file the writ of habeas corpus, which is a
constitutional privilege not revoked except in the case of suspension clause. The
court held that the right of filing habeas corpus is applied to them and the
process of alternative procedures were not sufficient or effective. The
Military Commission Act of 2006 is not intended to be a substitute for habeas
corpus and hence every prisoner has the right to have legality to challenge the
detention.
The horror
of being in the camp
The prison
was built to hold the detainees as enemy combatants and those prisoners were
from forty- nine different countries, mostly from Afghans, Saudis, Yemenis, and
Pakistanis, and the age bar of those detainees ranged between thirteen to
eighty-nine when detained. Some detainees were been nabbed in the middle of the
night as they were been in the list of Al-Qaeda suspects. There is no escape from
the camp, as they are guarded by steep hills, motion, and sound sensors on the
US side to invigilate the detainees. The camp has been divided into four prison
camps for different types of captives. Every camp is surrounded by rings of
barbed wire with separate gates, many detainees are unaware that they are near
the coast. In case a detainee needs medical care, that particular detainee will
be blindfolded. While moving to and fro, the guards will check the detainee’s scrotum
and thigh to ensure that nothing foreign was attached to the body. For the
detainees, their future is undetermined. They spent their time on being in a coffin
as a punishment for 11 days and other brutal treatment was given to them. 24
hours or 48 hours of sleep deprivation will be taken by the detainees, their
cognitive abilities will disappear. During CIA custody some detainees may have
lost their eyes.
No US
government officials will be liable for implementing the CIA’s secret detention
and torture program. The torture report was not been released to the people. Biden
also opposed not allowing the International Criminal Court on atrocities by the
nation on the aspect of grave human rights crimes in Afghanistan. It is also
noted that the country continued abusive practices against terrorism suspects including
transferring them to countries that torture and unlawfully detain people across
the sea.
The
detainees complained that there was a lack of medical assistance and torture
rehabilitation to habilitate the victims both at the bay and the transferred
place. They are not also able to meet their families when in need. Mental
stress and paranoia also became a repercussion of being in the bay for a longer
period of time. The motto has been diverged from time, and the responses were
not well provided by the government, when approached by the families, though
judgements were been provided accordingly.
Conclusion
Guantanamo Bay
is now being prepared to address the hardest human rights issues and urged
other countries that were barred from accessing detention centers to follow
suit. In the year of 2003, the facility held 700 prisoners, twenty years later
39 detainees are remaining. Among those 39 detainees, only 9 of them have been
charged with or convicted of crimes, and 13 have been cleared for transfer.
Some of the detainees in the bay committed suicide during the trial. This bay
is lagged in accountability as they practice on the path of brutality, torture
and ill-treatment towards the detainees. Though the idea of the camp was
developed by the Bush during the period of 2001 but during the regime of Biden
and Obama, their main motto was to plummet the use of detention camp. As during
2009 election, Former President Barack Obama promised to close the prison
within one year and the detainees will be released immediately once the prison
is dissolved, however it has a long run during his regime compared to Bush
regime. In this case the human right is completely violated, and hunger strikes
were been taken by detainees for their basic rights and could not endure the persistent
torture and detention. During this period, Code Yellow incidents has been out
based on their testimonies, prisoners passed out during the strike. At this
current period under Biden, though prisoners transferred from the prison yet it
is operational. At the end, to protect themselves from further terror attacks,
the US government tends to keep it operational. However, torturing prisoners
without cross-examination is way beyond worse.
Citation