Remember Guantanamo?

The prison at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay has held 779 detainees since President George W. Bush opened it in January 2002. The men were held at the prison encampment as terror suspects to be interrogated during what was called the Global War on Terrorism. The interrogations included torture. Thirty detainees remain there today.

All of the men were Muslim, and all but a handful have been held without trial or charges, according to Yumna Rizvi, senior policy analyst for the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT).

CVT is an international nonprofit headquartered at 2356 University Ave. in Saint Paul. Its vision is to see a world without torture.

Along with other organizations, CVT has sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking him to close Guantanamo completely.

“We have been doing advocacy around Guantanamo since it opened,” Rizvi said. “We have done this with other presidents, including Presidents Bush and Obama. Last year over 150 organizations from around the world signed on to a letter, and this year we have done the same.”

Rizvi said the organizations have some allies in congress, specifically mentioning Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL. “Even on the House side, we regularly engage with members and with the administration. We continue to create awareness that Guantanamo needs to be closed.”

With detainees being left to languish at the encampment, Rizvi said the United States runs the risk of being accused of hypocrisy. “At the United Nations in October, Russia brought up Guantanamo to the U.S., saying it was still open and pointing to the hypocrisy.”

She also worries that the situation in Guantanamo could easily be forgotten.

“It is not present any more in American life,” she said. “People say ‘Oh, is it still open?’ It is not something regular Americans are thinking about.”

Rizvi said American tax dollars are still supporting Guantanamo, even though most people do not even realize it is still open and holding detainees. She said that at the cost of $540 million per year, Guantanamo is the most expensive prison in the world.

“One of the main purposes of our advocacy with Guantanamo is to inform the people born after 9/11 about the encampment and the process of what happened there and the fact that it remains open,” Rizvi explained. She said she would like to believe that a place like Guantanamo could never happen again in the manner in which it did before.

“The United States would like to believe it has learned its lessons,” she said. “Biden and Obama have turned the page. But there is still a lack of culpability at the top level. No high official has ever been held accountable (for Guantanamo.)

“We are seeing in other parts of the world through the post-9/11 period that other countries look to the U.S. and duplicate its policies. When it comes to detention and treatment based on fundamental rights, a lack of accountability perpetuates other countries to do this.”

Although the United States may not want to open something like Guantanamo again, Rizvi said the nation is stuck in a situation where 30 detainees are still held. “Who knows where that ends and another one starts?” she asked.”We are not getting past it in any truly meaningful way.”

Rizvi said that President Biden campaigned on closing Guantanamo, and she hopes that will successfully happen. “But we have been disappointed,” she added. “In three years, only a handful of detainees have been transferred out from Guantanamo. I would like to believe he is committed to closing it, but so far I have not seen any action.”

She said there is considerable regret, but meanwhile the years continue to pass.

In June 2023, Fionnuala Aolain was the first United Nations independent expert allowed to conduct a meaningful visit to Guantanamo, according to Rizvi. Aolain called the current conditions at Guantanamo “ongoing cruel, inhumane and degrading... and may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

The men remaining at Guantanamo have not received any torture rehabilitation, adequate medical care or culturally informed care, Rizvi claimed. The trauma of nearly two decades of being detained with little hope for the future is real. She added that the victims of 9/11 have been betrayed and have not been able to get justice.

She said that CVT is also concerned about the military proposals around immigration today, House calls for increased security at the southern border and calls for immigrants to remain in Mexico. “It is an interesting time to see all of that while the war in Israel continues, and we are turning away refugees who come here,” she said.

She said CVT has clients from different parts of the world who talk about the difficulties they face and then are turned away. “The United States has lost its moral compass,” Rizvi remarked. She added,”Marginalized communities are seen as collateral damage.” She said CVT is also advocating for a cease fire in the Israeli-Hamas conflict taking place in Gaza.

Rizvi said CVT has the support of many organizations and partners in wanting to reinstate funds to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA.)