Leading human rights organizations have denounced the US prison camp at Guantánamo.  The International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have spoken out against it.  The British Attorney General has said it is unacceptable. The European Parliament called on the US Administration to close it.  Even within the US military and the upper ranks of the Bush administration there are those who favour its closure.

Yet eight hundred people remain locked up there, with practically no rights, exposed to abuse – the overwhelming majority without any charge against them.  Many have been imprisoned there for four or five years, with almost no contact to the outside world, suffering from the torments of isolation, offered no reason for their detention.

Sami Al Haj, Adel Hamad and Abdullah al Matrafi are three examples of this tragedy.

Guantánamo symbolizes the most despotic trends of our time.  Its existence rejects the rule of law and the protection of human beings from arbitrary authority.  Its prisoners’ suffering shocks us all.  If this frightful prison continues to exist, who knows what might come next?

For these reasons, we call for the immediate closure of Guantánamo and the release of all prisoners except those against whom formal charges have been brought, who deserve a proper civil trial.

Guantánamo will continue to haunt us in the future, but let us end its terrible example in the present!

Global Coordination for Sami AL HAJ

03/05/2007