Kabul, 17 Rajab 1434/27 May 2013 (MINA) – Afghan president Hamid Karzai once again urged United States of America to transfer Afghan detainees from Guantanamo prison to Afghanistan.
Presidential palace spokesman Aimal Faizi on Sunday (26/5) said president Hamid Karzai welcomed his US counterpart president Barack Obama’s efforts to close Guantanamo prison.
President Karzai during his visit to United States of America earlier this year also urged US officials to hand over Afghan detainees in Guantanamo prison to Afghanistan.
Also Read: India and Pakistan Issue Conflicting Statements on Kashmir Ceasefire
Aimal Faizi said president Hamid Karzai has once again insisted to consider Afghanistan’s demand in this regard.
President Obama reiterated his commitment in a counterterrorism speech last week and outlined steps he would take to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the Khaama Press quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
The speech also reaffirmed Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where suspected terrorists have been detained, tortured and harassed without indictment and trial.
Obama said the US is is committed to “capturing terrorist suspects” and prosecuting them, but that “The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay”.
Also Read: Trump Says India and Pakistan Agree to Immediate Ceasefire
“When I ran for president the first time, John McCain supported closing Gitmo. No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States,” said Obama.
Answering censure a person in the audience on the issue of forcefeeding hunger-striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Obama say that there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened.
Obama also urged US congress to end ban on transfer of inmates from Guantanamo prison.
In the meantime Aimal Faizi said that president Karzai is expecting that the US congress lift ban on transfer of inmates from Guantanamo to their homeland.
Also Read: Pakistan Launches Retaliatory Missile Strikes on India Amid Escalating Tensions
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States military located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in January 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees it had determined to be connected with opponents in the Global War on Terror including Afghanistan and later Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia. It is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which fronts on Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
The detainment areas consisted of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray, but Camp X-Ray has been closed. The facility is often referred to as Guantánamo, G-Bay or Gitmo, after GTMO, the military abbreviation for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
After Bush political appointees at the U.S. Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice advised the Bush administration that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be considered outside U.S. legal jurisdiction, military guards took the first twenty captives to Guantanamo on 11th January 2002. The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
Ensuing U.S. Supreme Courtdecisions since 2004 have determined otherwise and that the courts have jurisdiction: it ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on 29th June 2006, that detainees were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Following this, on 07th July 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3.
Also Read: Pakistan Shoot Down 48 Indian Drones Amid Deadly Cross-Border Clashes
Current and former prisoners have complained of abuse and torture, which the Bush administration denied. In a 2005 Amnesty International report. the facility was called the “gulag of our times.” In 2006 the United Nations called unsuccessfully for the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp to be closed; one judge observed ‘America’s idea of what is torture … does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations’.
On 22nd January 2009, President Barack Obama signed an order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantanamo military commission for 120 days and to shut down the detention facility within the year. On 29th January 2009, a military judge at Guantanamo rejected the White House request in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviewed how the United States brings Guantanamo detainees to trial.
On 20th May 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) by a 90–6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. President Obama issued a Presidential memorandum dated 15th December 2009, ordering Thomson Correctional Center, Thomson, Illinois to be prepared to accept transferred Guantanamo prisoners.
The Final Report of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, dated 22nd January 2010, published the results for the 240 detainees subject to the Review: 36 were the subject of active cases or investigations; 30 detainees from Yemen were designated for ‘conditional detention’ due to the poor security environment in Yemen; 126 detainees were approved for transfer; 48 detainees were determined ‘too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution’.
Also Read: Pakistan-India Cross-Border Attacks Continue, Civilian Casualties Reported
On 07th January 2011, President Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, which, in part, placed restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland or to foreign countries, thus impeding the closure of the facility.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates said during testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on 17th February 2011: “The prospects for closing Guantanamo as best I can tell are very, very low given very broad opposition to doing that here in the Congress.” Congress particularly opposed moving prisoners to facilities in the United States for detention or trial. (T/P09/P04).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Also Read: Aceh’s Intellectual and Cultural Heritage Exhibited in Malaysia
Also Read: Pakistani PM Vows to Defend Sovereignty Amid Escalating Tensions with India
Mina Indonesia
Mina Arabic
Mina Sport