There has been overwhelming criticism concerning the legal issues in the Guantamano Bay camp. In this regard, there has been a lot of concern as to whether human rights and other humanitarian issues have been taken into consideration (Worthington 71). It has been argued that a lot of injustices and denial of basic human rights have been done upon the individuals who were incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. Based on the US justice department’s advice to the federal government, the Guantamano detention camp was considered to be outside US jurisdiction (Worthington 71). It is sad to note that the detainees were not entitled to any protection under the Geneva Convention. There has been a conflict between the Justice Department opinion and the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the detainees were entitled to minimal protections. These provisions were under the common article 3 of the Geneva conventions thus enabling the detainees to be given some basic human freedoms. This paper will extensively discuss and analyze the legal issues in the Guantanamo bay camp (Worthington 71).
The tragic events of Sept 11, 2001 were the main causes of the US fight against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorists. Following this military attack, the US established the Guantamano detention camp in Cuba (Worthington 71). The main aim of this camp was to establish a comprehensive interrogation upon the suspects of terrorism. The US military personnel were aimed at arriving at concise information that will help in alleviating future terrorists’ attacks. The Sept 11th attack at ground zero was the worst terrorist attack in US soil; thus forcing it to use any available choices to crackdown the suspected terrorists groups and more specifically the Al Qaeda (Worthington 71).
Since the Sept 11th attack, the US military have practiced inhumane treatment to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay. These issues have led to significant criticism from human rights organizations alongside other groups (Worthington 71). The most severe problems and misconducts at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp began in 2002 when Donald Rumsfeld order for special interrogation. The special interrogation was aimed at forcing the detainees to give all necessary information regarding terrorism, which would be used to prevent terrorism in US soil (Worthington 71).
Donald Rumsfeld who is the Defense Secretary order for adoption of all sorts of strategies both pleasing and unpleasing to ensure the detainees reveals all secrets. Some of the methods advocated for by Donald Rumsfeld included the following (Worthington 71). Firstly, putting hoods on prisoners and chaining them excessively, stripping prisoners and shackling them. Other torture methods adopted by the military include: excessive humiliation to detainees, semi starvation, and excessive stress among other mistreatments. All these inhumane practices had been exposed by the media and other human rights organizations. All the practices occurring at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp were very illegal and attracted a lot of criticism (Worthington 71).
The Geneva conventions regarding prisoners of war were highly violated by the US military. The US military categorized the terrorist fighters as illegal combatants and denied them all the basic human rights (Worthington 71). The US government received a lot of criticism from the phenomenon since it was expected to show sense of respect to prisoners and humanity in general. The US constitution is very clear on the issues of prisoner’s rights. Another criticism was also mounted on the Supreme Court which failed to give effective guidelines on the manner in which the US military should conduct the interrogations (Worthington 71).
It has been noted that the detainees were deliberately denied basic human rights under the name of being “enemy combatants”. The US department of defense issued various memos stating that the detainees were a big threat to US security as well as global peace and that they didn’t deserve any protection (Rotunda 46). The detainees held in these camps have been reported to be severely tortured by the US security personnel. The freedom of expression or representation was optimally denied to these individuals; thus leading to a violation of human rights. For instance, the freedom of sight has been one of the most overwhelming tortures administered to these detainees. Most of the detainees were denied access to vicinity and could not even identify where they are being relocated to (Rotunda 46).
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp has practiced a lot of violation to basic legal rights of people. For instance, suspects were being denied without any trial. This is really a serious violation of human rights and stood to be criticized by human rights groups as well as people from all corners of the globe (Worthington 71). The US security personnel was arresting and detaining any person without concise questioning or trial of the offenses committed. Based on this phenomenon, suspects of terrorism activities were not spared in the process. In regard to this situation, Muslim members were severely affected in the detention process, whereby a lot of bias and violation of law was executed. The concept of detention without trial is really apathetic and abusive human practice and had no legal or moral backing (Worthington 71).
The issue of illegal immigrants has also been very ambiguous as to the motives of the US in the Guantanamo Bay. In relation with this phenomenon, the US security officers targeted illegal immigrants who were in the process of entering US through Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic (Hafetz 113). This scenario drew a lot of criticism due to the illegality and inhumane nature of the US security personnel. With reference to immigrants, it is more appropriate if the US security officials followed the basic legal procedures in dealing with illegal immigrants. Violation of human rights was very evident in that innocent immigrants who had Islam origin were victims of the procedures. Illegal immigrants entering the US through Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti were not given any legal representation or freedom of expression. In relation with this practice, a lot of human rights violation was evident in that victims were not given opportunity to be tried by any legal system. From this perspective, it’s very evident that many innocent citizens were victims of the Guantanamo detention camp(Hafetz 113).
As indicated by the Department of defense and the Supreme Court reports, there were a lot of conflicts between the detainees to be released as well as those to remain in the camps. For instance, on March 3, 2006, a court order required that 558 names be released from the camps. Nevertheless, the DOD violated this orders and instead only released 317 names (Rotunda 46). Based on these statistics, it’s evident that the security personnel where not genuine in their practices. It is sad to note the, the DOD deliberately held names that had already been cleared by the court. This is actually violation of justice of the highest order. Most of the detainees were very innocent and it’s only their religious affiliation which determined their fete. In relation with this insight, it’s absolutely sad to note that all the detainees in these camps were all Muslims.
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