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20 years of torture: Guantanamo Bay remains open two decades later

by Luqmaan Rawat

GUANTANAMO – January 9th, 2022, marks twenty years since the infamous Guantanamo Bay military prison was opened to house people that the United States deemed terrorists. Although many believe that it was closed down, it remains open and operational.

Speaking to Salaamedia, British author and journalist Dr. Yvonne Ridley expressed her disappointment that it was still open and operating outside International Law.


“People around the world still think that Guantanamo is closed and it was and has been an issue that’s consigned to the past when, in fact, Guantanamo is still very much in operation. It’s still operating outside international law in the view of many of us,” she said.


Dr. Ridley explained that her first visit to Guantanamo Bay detention camp, located at the U.S. naval base in  Cuba, was to do a film about it. She described her visit as a traumatic experience for her and called for its closure.


“I went to Guantanamo as a visitor with a film crew. We made a film called Inside the Wire and it was a really traumatic experience for me just as a visitor walking into that facility and feeling this great sense of injustice. So, it is very important that we remember this anniversary but it’s very important that we continue to act upon calling for the closure of Guantanamo.”


Dr. Ridley also claimed that those at Guantanamo were kept without ever being charged or granted a trail.

 

“You know, more than 20 years on, it’s quite shocking to believe that in the 21st century there are men being held there without charge, without trial by the so-called ‘greatest superpower in the world’ that likes to think it shines a beacon on justice when there’s this underbelly in occupied Cuba and it’s quite the reverse.”

Inayet Wadee spoke to Dr. Yvonne Ridley, a British author and journalist, on News & Views. Watch to the full discussion here:

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