Trial and Terror

The lives of the prisoners of war in Guantanamo has been out of focus in media lately. Now the first prisoner will finally get a trial in a civil court. Obama promised to close the Guantanamo prison when he was elected, but so far not much has happened. There seem to be little progress in the closing process, apparently there is trouble with the transfer of prisoners to other facilities and more surprisingly with the prisoners that are to be released.

Hopefully this will pave the way for more trials in civil courts, instead of the closed and criticised trials in military courts.

Previous post on the prisoners in Guantanamo


[Guantanamo] [USA] [Prisoners of War] Share on Facebook

Prisoners of War?

The United States has repeatedly been exposed violating human rights for prisoners of war. It has happened in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in prisons in Egypt and Eastern Europe. How can the world's most powerful nation and one of the largest democracies do this repeatedly?

The prisoners in Guantanamo are not officially prisoners of war and therefore, according to the US, the Geneva Convention does not apply. Is it this easy to strip a person of his human rights? It is unbelievable that there is not more diplomatic pressure on the US government to stop the illtreatment of prisoners.


The prisoners in Guantanamo are not informed of where they are or why they are being hold captive. They are inprisoned under inhumane conditions and are subject to torture. This is carried out in a very elaborate way, and always outside of the US. The Guantanamo prison camp is not the only place this goes on, another exampless are the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Also several reports tells stories of suspected terrorists being arrested under suspicious circumstances and flown to prisons in Eastern Europe and Egypt to be tortured in a search for information.

The prisoners are held without being told what they are being accused of and without a trial or even a trial date. The only trials being held are closed military trials, which are not in line with democratic ideals.

My personal hope is that the next elected president will be a democrat with a willingness to clean up after the previous regime and hold them responsible for their actions.

A couple of links:
Tortured Logic
Life in a Guantanamo Cell

[Guantanamo] [Human Rights] [Prisoners of War] [Torture] [War on terror]