rssHuman Rights Advocates Urge Holder To Address Problem of Child Soldiers Imprisoned at Guantanamo
Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 3:09 pm
- 6 Comments
When President Obama declared early in his presidency that he plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, that was hardly the end of the matter. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder must now figure out what to do with the 240 or so people still held there. And perhaps no cases cry out more urgently for attention than those of the young men abducted abroad as teenagers, and now held at Gitmo for more than six years.
As I’ve written previously, for some, that’s more than a quarter of their entire lives.
To keep the pressure on the administration to do something about this, Human Rights Watch today sent a letter to Holder, setting out some of the more gruesome details of the men’s cases — and the fact that their treatment appears to violate international standards of juvenile justice.
According to Human Rights Watch: “International treaty law and accepted juvenile justice norms require governments to provide children (defined as persons under the age of 18) with special safeguards and care.” Juveniles are supposed to be held for the shortest time possible; their cases should be handled as “speedily as possible”; and rehabilitation should be the primary goal. They’re also supposed to be separated from adults, allowed contact with their families, and be given special care and rehabilitative assistance.
That’s not happening.
Among the men who were picked up as children and are still being held at Gitmo are Mohammad El Gharani, arrested when he was 15-years-old in a mosque in Pakistan on evidence a judge later said was too thin to justify holding him; Mohammad Jawad, detained at age 16 or 17 for allegedly throwing a grenade at a U.S. army vehicle in Afghanistan, to which he “confessed” under torture; Omar Khadr, a Canadian arrested at 15 and held in prolonged solitary confinement and used “as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during an interrogation session”; Mohammad Khan Tumani, held in solitary confinement and subjected to a range of physical and psychological abuses since age 17, and denied access to his father, also imprisoned at Guantanamo; and Fahd Abdullah Ahmed Ghazi, a Yemeni arrested at when he was 17 — who’s been at Gitmo for more than seven years and has been cleared to leave for over a year now but must wait for the United States to reach an agreement with Yemen for his return.
Not surprisingly, many have tried to commit suicide multiple times and in a variety of gruesome ways — slitting their wrists, banging their heads against walls — and show clear signs of dramatic mental deterioration.
They are, as I’ve noted before, among many men stuck in legal limbo as they await rulings on their cases. It’s a problem that was created by the arguably illegal indefinite detentention policies and extreme executive power claims of the Bush administration; unfortunately for President Obama, it’s now fallen to his administration to resolve.
6 Comments
Pingback posted March 26, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
[...] in Bush Administration, Daily life, Government, Law, Obama administration at 12:20 pm by LeisureGuy Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent: When President Obama declared early in his presidency that he plans to close the prison at [...]
Comment posted March 26, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
I am from vancouver,canada and i wanted to comment on Omar Khadr.He shouldn't have been at Guantanamo to begin with.There are a lot of people here in canada who are working to get Omar Khadr back to canada.The gov. here is reactionary and racist so it is the people here who have a sense of justice that will get Omar Khadr back.President Obama should be making Guantanamo a priority instead of waiting a year to solve this problem.I know that there are people in other parts of the world that are helping to solve this problem.This problem can be solved easily if the president got the will to do it.
Stan Squires
Trackback posted March 27, 2009 @ 8:27 am
Buy Propecia Online…
http://www.folkd.com/user/buypropeciaonline Buy Propecia Online…
Comment posted March 27, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Omar isn't coming back, Stan:
http://fakirsca.blogspot.com/2009/02/life-and-t…
You're wasting your energy – and I speak as one who has expended a great deal of effort and time in the cause of repatriation. The law and morality are clear: he should be repatriated. The reality is, however, that if it was going to happend, then it would have happened by now.
I suspect that our government is not telling us what it thinks the real problem is with Omar Khadr's repatriation. I suspect that our government has concerns about the environment to which Omar Khadr would be returning. I know that I have concerns about this also.
Comment posted March 27, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
Omar isn't coming back, Stan:
http://fakirsca.blogspot.com/2009/02/life-and-t…
You're wasting your energy – and I speak as one who has expended a great deal of effort and time in the cause of repatriation. The law and morality are clear: he should be repatriated. The reality is, however, that if it was going to happend, then it would have happened by now.
I suspect that our government is not telling us what it thinks the real problem is with Omar Khadr's repatriation. I suspect that our government has concerns about the environment to which Omar Khadr would be returning. I know that I have concerns about this also.
Pingback posted February 25, 2011 @ 3:41 am
[...] 240 Gefangene, darunter einige Kindersoldaten, befinden sich seit über sechs Jahren in Guantanamo. Nach der zügigen Amtentscheidung zu Beginn von Präsident Obamas Regierungsperiode, das berüchtigte Gefängnis zu schließen, fehlen bisher konkrete Pläne zur Ausführung. Um die Regierung unter Druck zu setzen, hat Human Rights Watch, eine Organisation, die sich für die Einhaltung der Menschenrechte einsetzt, heute einen Brief an General Eric Holder gesendet, in dem Details über die Einzelfälle der Jugendlichen aufgelistet sind. Die Betonung liegt dabei auf der Tatsache, dass die Gefangenenbehandlung internationale Standards des Jugendstrafrechts verletze. Jugendliche unter 18 Jahren dürfen nur so kurz wie möglich inhaftiert bleiben, ihre Rehabilitation stehe an erster Stelle, außerdem sollen sie von erwachsenen Straftätern separiert werden und die Erlaubnis erhalten, Kontakt zu ihren Familien aufzunehmen. Die jungen Männer, die als Kinder außer Landes verschleppt wurden, haben ihre vermeintlichen Straftaten unter Folter gestanden und waren langer Einzelhaft, entsetzlichen Demütigungen, sowie psychischen und physischen Misshandlungen ausgesetzt. Aufgabe der Obama-Regierung ist es nun, die Probleme, die aus den illegalen Verhaftungstaktiken und extremen Machtansprüchen der Bush-Regierung resultieren, aufzufangen und zu lösen. Quelle: The Washington Independent vom 26. März 2009 [...]
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
