Good morning, dear classmates:

Today, according to the topic of this week, human rights, I wanted to tell you a little bit
about a place where human rights are violated every single day.
I’m referring to the United States military prison of Guantanamo, a detention camp
located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.

The Naval Base was adapted to become a prison by the end of 2001. According to the
then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, this place was meant to detain
extraordinary dangerous people and to prosecute detainees for war crimes.

But nothing could be further from the truth. After the September 11 attacks, George Bush
signed a military order that authorized The Pentagon to keep non-US citizens detained
indefinitely without trial. The first twenty prisoners arrived on 11 January 2002.

But why is this camp still considered as a major breach of human rights? Well, one of
the main Human Rights violations committed by the United States in the prison of
Guantanamo is the indefinite or arbitrary detention, meaning that anyone, whether
they’re linked to terrorism or not, can be arrested and imprisoned in Guantanamo for
years. That was the case of, for instance, an elderly man with dementia whose only crime
was to own a mobile phone he didn’t know how to use, or a father who was looking for
his son on the war front. Both spent years in prison without even knowing what they were
accused of. Other Human Rights violations include torture or any other cruel or degrading
treatment or lack of access to an adequate legal process.

Barack Obama decreed in 2009 the closing of the camp within one year, but due to several
problems with the funding for the relocation of the inmates, Guantanamo remains open
with 41 detainees.

We don’t know yet what is going to happen with Guantanamo, but taking into account
that Donald Trump has recently promised to increase the Guantanamo population with,
and I quote, “some bad dudes”, end of quote, the picture is not very encouraging.
41 detainees
Thank you so much for listening.