Protests to hit US on 12th Guantanamo anniversary

The American people are to take to the streets across the country and demand the closure of the Guantanamo prison on Saturday, the 12th anniversary of the notorious US-run prison’s opening.

Exactly 12 years ago, on January 11, 2002, the first prisoners were airlifted into the prison complex at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba following then US President George W. Bush’s November 13, 2001 order which authorized the establishment of the prison and detention of US-captured “terror suspects.”

Nevertheless, out of the 779 prisoners ever held at the prison, only seven men have been convicted and sentenced. According to The Guardian, those charged and convicted of a war crime were lucky because they would have a chance to get out of Guantanamo while most of the prisoners who have been held there without a charge could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

During his presidential campaign in 2008, President Barack Obama promised to close the prison as he acknowledged that the detention camp was a symbol of the US government’s violation of human rights.

Today, twelve years after the opening of the prison and almost five years after Obama promised to close it, Americans all across the country are to take to the streets to demand the shutting down of the prison.

Protests are planned at the White House in Washington, D.C., and a number of other US cities including Miami, Santa Monica, and Chicago.

In early February last year, Guantanamo prisoners began a hunger strike in protest against harsh conditions and indefinite detention without trial. The mass protest peaked in July as over 130 prisoners were taking part in the hunger strike.

Images from the detention center published in June showed how prisoners were force-fed by military guards, being strapped to a metal restraint chair and fed through the nose with plastic tubing.

The US military said in December that it would no longer release reports of hunger strikes staged at the prison to the public since disclosing such news would not be in US interests.