20 Years Later, Guantánamo Bay Is Still A Humanitarian Horror

Twenty years after the opening of the notorious military prison at Guantánamo Bay, the United Nations has renewed calls to condemn “this horrific detention and prison complex.”

By David Kattenburg, The Real News

In January of this year, on the 20th anniversary of the opening of the notorious military prison at Guantánamo Bay on the eastern tip of Cuba, the United Nations’ top human rights office issued an excoriating report on “Gitmo” and its continued operations. “Guantánamo Bay is a site of unparalleled notoriety, defined by the systematic use of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against hundreds of men brought to the site and deprived of their most fundamental rights,” the report stated. However, “Despite forceful, repeated and unequivocal condemnation of the operation of this horrific detention and prison complex with its associated trial processes, the United States continues to detain persons many of whom have never been charged with any crime.” TRNN correspondent David Kattenburg speaks about the continued horrors of Guantánamo Bay and the international fight to shut it down with Fionnuala Ni Aolain and Alka Pradhan.

protest at white house to close guantanamo bay torture prison complex

Fionnuala Ni Aolain is the lead author of the recent UN report on Guantánamo Bay. She is the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, University Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota, and faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota School of Law. Alka Pradhan is Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an expert on the application of human rights and humanitarian law in counterterrorism situations, and on the impact of torture on fair trials. Pradhan is currently Human Rights Counsel at Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions and has represented over a dozen of its detainees. She currently represents one of the defendants in the capital case United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Pre-Production: David Kattenburg
Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino