Statement: Close Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp.
Issue: Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp
Strongly Supports: 2333
Supports: 2718
Neutral: 2469
Opposes: 2202
Strongly Opposes: 1526
Average position: 'Neutral' (based on '11248' opinions)
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp is a joint military prison and interrogation camp under the leadership of Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002. The prison, established at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, holds people suspected by the executive branch of the U.S. government of being al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, as well as those no longer considered suspects who are being held pending relocation elsewhere.
Supporters of the detention argue that trial review of detentions has never been afforded to prisoners of war, and that it is reasonable for enemy combatants to be detained until the cessation of hostilities.
The Bush administration argued that the Third Geneva Convention does not apply to perceived Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters, since the Geneva convention only applies to uniformed soldiers of a recognized government. Jim Phillips of the Heritage Foundation claimed that "some of these terrorists who are not recognized as soldiers don't deserve to be treated as soldiers." A U.S. district court partially agreed with the Bush administration, finding that the Geneva Conventions apply to Taliban fighters, but not to Al Qaeda terrorists.
These critics of Guantanamo object to America's use of an offshore prison, and to the unclear legal status of its detainees (who are classified as "illegal combatants" not entitled to Geneva Convention protections, rather than as prisoners-of-war or common criminals). The critics also claimed that the detainees were entitled to the protection of the constitutionally guaranteed civil rights given to prisoners incarcerated within the United States.
The camp has also drawn strong criticism for its extrajudicial detention of captives and the possibility that captives held there were subjected to abusive interrogation techniques that could constitute torture. Amnesty International has called the situation "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports.
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