Amnesty: Guantanamo injustice must come to an end

Five years after US President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International Wednesday called on the European Union to uphold its commitment to ensure that the United States close the detention facility. "The injustice that is Guantanamo has been allowed to fester for twelve years now - twelve years too many. It is wholly unacceptable that the human rights violations by the US against those detained have gone unchecked for so long" said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office in Brussels, in a statement. He recalled that in June 2009 the EU and US made a landmark joint statement on the closure of Guantanamo; and the EU and its member states committed to assist the US by agreeing a framework to receive certain detainees in Europe. "But since then a veil of silence has fallen over EU leaders," lamented the statement. In parallel, EU member states have consistently failed to fully investigate alleged human rights violations that have occurred on the EU's own soil as part of the CIA-led rendition and secret detention programmes, it noted. "The EU member states' excuses are wearing thin. Victims must have justice now. The EU can no longer gloss over its role in human rights abuses committed on its own soil as part of the US-led "war on terror", said Beger. Amnesty International is calling for EU leaders to pro-actively engage with President Obama on closing Guantanamo during his forthcoming visit to Brussels on 26 March. It also calls on the EU to raise the plight of Guantanamo detainees Abu Zubaydah, at risk of indefinite detention, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, at risk of death penalty (both were allegedly detained in CIA secret detention on EU soil). EU Member states must also increase their efforts to resettle non-European detainees due to be released from Guantanamo who cannot be repatriated to their home states because of the risk of torture or death penalty, it added.