January 20, 2011 - 5:22pm
Two years ago, President Obama signed an executive order shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detainment facility. This week, however, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree took a trip to Cuba to see a facility still very much in use.
The problem is that to close down Guantanamo, something must be done with the detainees that are still locked up there. Some of them have been there for years. Years without charges or convictions and no end in sight.
Now the Obama administration is moving forward with the plans to close the base. Unfortunately though, instead of pursuing cases against the detainees in federal courts, they are moving forward with military commissions. These commissions have proven to be ineffectual at best and a denial of any sort of justice, at their worst.
In a press release from the ACLU, Hina Shamsi, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project writes:
“It is disappointing that the administration is determined to proceed with the discredited commissions but shows little appetite for following through on its plans to prosecute other Guantánamo cases in federal courts. If credible evidence exists against detainees, they should be prosecuted in federal criminal courts, which have a record of successfully completing hundreds of terrorism trials and are fully capable of protecting both national security and fundamental rights.
“Proceeding with the illegitimate military commissions system takes us back a step when we should be moving forward toward closing Guantánamo, ending its shameful policies and restoring the rule of law.”
