By Megan Bracewell Zurich international School Grade 8 English J8 summit 2012

I thought they would kill me under their cruel treatment. Thats how Karama Khamis Saeed, a Yemeni Guantanamo prisoner described his imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay (Al-Shothabi). Guantanamo Bay is a detention camp located inside the U.S naval Base in southern Cuba. The prison was opened in 2002 to hold prisoners from the Afghanistan and Iraq war including members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. There have been many complaints and protests calling to close Guantanamo Bay as the prisoners are not being treated fairly and are not being given the rights stated in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are having their human rights violated as they are imprisoned without a fair trial, tortured and are not able to live in a humane way. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are imprisoned without a fair trial even though this is violating Article 10 in the UDHR which states that everybody has the right to a fair and public trial (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights).Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay can be imprisoned without a fair trial and therefore are given an undefined sentence. Prisoners can be kept as long as officials want them to be kept at Guantanamo Bay and many are not released because it is said to be too dangerous to transfer them back to their home country, however if they were imprisoned in their own country in the first place this problem would not occur. Another issue with not giving prisoners a trial is that many prisoners are imprisoned who are later deemed innocent. These prisoners have spent weeks or even years living in misery when a simple trial could have prevented it. Over the ten years that Guantanamo Bay has been opened there have been many protests demanding for it to be closed. Obama himself said when he was being elected that G-Bay had to be closed within a year (CNN), but has now said it is too risky and gone back on his promise. Guantanamo Bay prisoners have not even been proved guilty and yet they are still imprisoned and interrogated cruelly. Why is this camp allowed to remain when it goes against Human Rights stated in the UDHR? Torture is another right the UDHR aims to prevent however there have been many claims and even a confession that torture has been used on Guantanamo prisoners. For many years the US government denied that torture was used but in February 2007 Susan Crawford, a government official, said in a public announcement We tortured Mohamed alQahtani (Susan Crawford).One type of torture used at GTMO is solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement is when a prisoner is isolated alone in a cell and has no or very little human contact. Approximately 70% of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are kept in solitary confinement (Solitary Confinement at Guantanamo Bay) and they are only allowed one to two hours of recreation time a day, however many prisoners dont even get that. Even during recreation time most prisoners are still alone in a single pen and back in their cells they receive their meals through a small flap in the door (Solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay). Over time many of the prisoners are physically and psychology damaged and some prisoners have even been said to have been talking to themselves and the walls of their cell. Another form of torture that is thought to be used at Guantanamo is waterboarding. Waterboarding gives prisoners the feeling that they are drowning as they are restrained and have a cloth put over their nose and mouth while water is poured over then. Waterboarding can leave people with physical damage, mentally scarred or can even result in death (Safire 795). Other tortures that are supposedly used on a daily basis include sleep deprivation, forced positions, temperature extremes and beatings. As well as going against basic human rights torture harms people both mentally and physically, yet there is plenty of evidence that torture is used at Guantanamo Bay. Article 25 in the UDHR states Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living and medical help if they are ill (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) however prisoners at Guantanamo Bay live in inhuman conditions due to poor of medical care, cramped cells and lack of things to do. A typical Guantanamo cell is only 1.8 meters by 2.4 meters (life in a Guantanamo Cell) and the inmates are very rarely allowed out. The cell has a small hole which is only opened during prayer time (all though it is often not opened then) and for prisoners to receive meals. The prisoners are supposed to receive a blanket, a sleeping mat, a drinks cup, two sets of clothes, a pair of flip flops, a copy of the Koran and basic toiletries (life in a Guantanamo Cell) but many prisoners do not get any toiletries and have to be supervised while using a toothbrush. Prisoners have also said they have had their religious beliefs abused and have been denied a copy of the Koran and witnessed guards tearing out pages, writing on the Koran and even flushing copies down the toilet(Eggen). The medical treatment at Guantanamo Bay is also far from satisfactory. Many prisoners have lost so much weight they are at life threatening levels and medical staff are sometimes told to withhold medical treatment on prisoners by interrogators in an attempt to make

them confess under torture. Another big problem for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is that they have a lack of things to do as they are only allowed one book a week and at most a couple of hours of recreation time in which the prisoners are often alone with little more than the occasional ball (Solitary Confinement at Guantanamo Bay). Prisoners also are only allowed to the write letters home occasionally and very few prisoners have actually been able to call family or friends. To sum up, prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are not living in the suitable conditions that they should be according to Article 25 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In conclusion prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are not being treated fairly and they are not being given the rights they deserve. Guantanamo Bay has been open for over ten years now, despite Obama promising to close it. It has held 779 prisoners in that time (Scheinkman), but should a camp where torture is used and where prisoners do not have the right to a fair trial be allowed to remain open?

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Al-Shothabi, Adhul Rahim. "Guantanamo Prisoner tells his story." Yemen Post Yemen Post. 21 January 2008. Yemen Post. 22 May 2012 <http://www.yemenpost.net/13/InvestigationAndInterview/1.htm>. Life in a Guantanamo cell. 7 may 2002 BBC news. 2 may 2012 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1766037.stm Solitary Confinement at Guantanamo Bay. Center for constitutional rights. 22May 2012 <http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/solitary-confinement-guantanamo-bay>. Safire, William. Safire's Political Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations. 29 May 2012 <http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/>. Eggen, Dan. "Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse." The Washington Post The Washington Post. 26 May 2005. 29 May 2012 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501395.html Scheinkman, Andrei. The Guantanamo Docket. The New York Times. 29 May 2012 <http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/about>. "Detainees in Guantanamo Bay." Online Image. The Telegraph. No date. 31 May 2012 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8471907/WikiLeaks-Guantanamo-Bayterrorist-secrets-revealed.html>.